Danny Kirwan

[Jimi Mac]

Danny is my hero! Peter's playing seems like too lofty a goal to achieve in it's sublime pinnacle nature, but I feel a certain kinship to Danny's style and unique sound!

Most everyone is familiar with Peter Green and the internationally known superstar band; Fleetwood Mac, that he formed as he ended his stint as the next guitarist in line with John Mayall's Blues Breakers after Eric Clapton...

But not everyone is as familiar with his protege` Danny Kirwan. I believe in 1968 Peter Discovered Danny plahying in a tight little garage blues band called Boilerhouse and took him in and under his wing. Danny was a pretty prolific song writer and guitar player in his own right and really bloomed under the mentoring of Peter Green and wrote hits like "Like It This Way," "Only You," "Something Inside Of Me," and "One Sunny Day" that are some of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs of all time.



Danny was another huge Les Paul playing icon of the late 60's wave of the The British Invasion Blues guitarists, and I'd stack him up against any of 'em! He started-off his Fleetwood Mac career as Peter Green's apprentice at the age of 17...



During that time he became a British Rock & Roll icon of guitar magic making some of the best music ever that helped propel Fleetwood Mac from another in a long line of good British Blues groups, to out-selling The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined in 1969!

His phenomenal work can be seen and heard on YouTube and I believe most of the leads on their wildly popular "Oh Well" were played by Danny on that '56 GoldTop as can be seen on The BBC's Music Mash from 1969...



I believe to my core that Danny Kirwan deserves more recognition for what he accomplished with both Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and his side projects like Tramp etc. of the era...

On a side note, I honestly believe that Danny Kirwan had simply the best left hand vibrato ever! You can hear his tour-de-force vibrato in the classic Fleetwood Mac Shrine '69 album, especially in this rendition of; "Something Inside of Me."