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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/jan/15/mick-green
The roll call of great British guitar players has for too long missed out the name of the late Mick Green, who died this week aged 65.
Best known for his work with the Pirates, Green went on to influence three generations of guitar players. In short, he was the original British guitar hero.
Green single-handedly invented the simultaneous rhythm and lead guitar attack that fired up the likes of Pete Townshend and several other 1960s guitarists, and was a big influence on Dr Feelgood's Wilko Johnson who, in turn, handed the choppy guitar style to the punk generation.
Green got his first break playing with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates in the early 60s, when the band were arguably the best pre-Merseybeat group in the UK. He was too late for their best-known hit, the brilliant Shaking All Over, but his guitar on I'll Never Get Over You helped the song reach the Top 5 and his slashing Fender Precision Deluxe inspired many aspiring musicians.
The Pirates' hits dried up as they were overtaken by the bands that had once supported them, such as the Who and the Beatles. In 1964, Green joined Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas before becoming, bizarrely, part of Engelbert Humperdinck's backing band for seven years – a great-paying gig but hardly the place to showcase his revolutionary style.
He reformed the Pirates in the mid 1970s and the band became one of the cornerstone acts in the pub-rock scene, which overlapped with punk in 1976. Despite the band's rather grizzly appearance they were welcomed by many punks, who fell in love with the band's tough, bar-room sound.
Johnson once told me that he had spent a big chunk of his youth playing Pirates records at 33rpm and working out the guitar parts. He was astounded by the way Green could play rhythm and lead at the time – when Dr Feelgood reached No 1 in the mid-70s Johnson was widely seen to be the inventor of the technique, although he has always been at great pains to turn the spotlight back on to the self-effacing Green.
The technique, which combined a tough, aggressive rhythm guitar played with a flurry of lead licks, produced the sound of two great guitars at once. Johnson mastered the style and took it somewhere else, which led many young punk guitarists to worship at his altar. The more discerning would then flock to Pirates gigs to see Green, the originator, still playing the same powerful technique.
Finally achieving recognition for his astounding guitar playing in the 1980s and 1990s, Green became a session player for, among others, Bryan Ferry, Van Morrison and Paul McCartney. But it's his guitar work with the Pirates that he will be best remembered for. Let's hope that, belatedly, he gets the mainstream attention he deserved.
The roll call of great British guitar players has for too long missed out the name of the late Mick Green, who died this week aged 65.
Best known for his work with the Pirates, Green went on to influence three generations of guitar players. In short, he was the original British guitar hero.
Green single-handedly invented the simultaneous rhythm and lead guitar attack that fired up the likes of Pete Townshend and several other 1960s guitarists, and was a big influence on Dr Feelgood's Wilko Johnson who, in turn, handed the choppy guitar style to the punk generation.
Green got his first break playing with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates in the early 60s, when the band were arguably the best pre-Merseybeat group in the UK. He was too late for their best-known hit, the brilliant Shaking All Over, but his guitar on I'll Never Get Over You helped the song reach the Top 5 and his slashing Fender Precision Deluxe inspired many aspiring musicians.
The Pirates' hits dried up as they were overtaken by the bands that had once supported them, such as the Who and the Beatles. In 1964, Green joined Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas before becoming, bizarrely, part of Engelbert Humperdinck's backing band for seven years – a great-paying gig but hardly the place to showcase his revolutionary style.
He reformed the Pirates in the mid 1970s and the band became one of the cornerstone acts in the pub-rock scene, which overlapped with punk in 1976. Despite the band's rather grizzly appearance they were welcomed by many punks, who fell in love with the band's tough, bar-room sound.
Johnson once told me that he had spent a big chunk of his youth playing Pirates records at 33rpm and working out the guitar parts. He was astounded by the way Green could play rhythm and lead at the time – when Dr Feelgood reached No 1 in the mid-70s Johnson was widely seen to be the inventor of the technique, although he has always been at great pains to turn the spotlight back on to the self-effacing Green.
The technique, which combined a tough, aggressive rhythm guitar played with a flurry of lead licks, produced the sound of two great guitars at once. Johnson mastered the style and took it somewhere else, which led many young punk guitarists to worship at his altar. The more discerning would then flock to Pirates gigs to see Green, the originator, still playing the same powerful technique.
Finally achieving recognition for his astounding guitar playing in the 1980s and 1990s, Green became a session player for, among others, Bryan Ferry, Van Morrison and Paul McCartney. But it's his guitar work with the Pirates that he will be best remembered for. Let's hope that, belatedly, he gets the mainstream attention he deserved.
