The Soul of Peter Greenberg

The Secret Museum
by Jim Webb

It’s not often that you meet a solar company executive who is also one of the most underrated guitarists in America. Many in the Taos Valley can now make that claim since Peter Greenberg and his wife Milissa moved to Arroyo Seco in 2008. Music aficionados of the local rock scene have seen him playing with Manby’s Head in a garage rock style, and a recent show at the KTAO Center had Peter on stage with his old Rock n’ Soul group Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. Throw in his previous membership with Boston punk group DMZ and the ‘60’s influenced Lyres and you have someone who has attacked his fret board with a passion in a variety of styles these last thirty-five years, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

He is a music fan, as well as a writer and performer of songs, but his music collection isn’t like mine or yours. First of all he doesn’t buy cds, only old style vinyl 45s and LPs are allowed into his home. He has turned his back on any mainstream release through the years, and concentrates with a gold miner’s intensity in looking for lost nuggets in a variety of styles that others have missed. Listening to forgotten swing / jump blues artists from the 1940’s like Louis Jordan and Bullmoose Jackson, along with old time country singers from the 1950’s including Floyd Tillman, Webb Pierce and Moon Mullican is his idea (and mine) of a fun evening. Obscure blues artists and rockabilly bands form another core of his library that pretty much ends by the late 60’s. His real passion though falls under the category of Soul music. There has been a lot of Soul Music sub -genres through the years including Memphis Soul, Philly Soul, Detroit Soul, Chicago Soul, and the broader, overlapping Northern Soul. Detroit Soul, more popularly known as Motown, had the most mass commercial appeal, while Philly Soul generally had more of a “sweeter” sound than the grittier Stax/Volt label artists who recorded in Memphis. Chicago Soul had at times a harder blues edge, and Northern Soul is a general catchall phrase for a lot of obscure artists from the North who never had hit records but released a lot of quality music. Northern Soul also caught on big in certain U.K. clubs during the 60’s and 70’s that were specializing in playing these lesser known Soul musicians. No matter how you classify Soul records, it always has a lot of feeling inside the grooves.

I spent an evening with Peter recently, and he kept pulling out rare and unknown Soul 45s while we discussed the various artists on the small Chicago labels of Onederful and Mar - V- Lus. He recorded the songs he played onto a cdr; here are a few of what we listened to:

1.) Carl O. Jones / Betty Everett – “Days Gone By” (Chicago / Northern Soul). Betty had a hit with the “Shoop Shoop Song”, this was less commercial, but just as satisfying.

2.) Johnny Sayles – “You Told a Lie” (Chicago Soul). Deep, wrenching tale of loss and betrayal.

3.) Soul Brothers Six – “Your Love is Such a Wonderful Love” (Rochester, N.Y.) Five brothers and a friend, uptempo group who recorded on the Atlantic label

4.) Otis Clay – “I Got to Find a Way” (Chicago Soul). Powerful vocalist still
performing live.

5.) Alvin Cash – “Twine Time” (Chicago Soul) Big instrumental hit in 1965

6.) McKinley Mitchell – “A Bit of Soul” (Chicago Soul). One-derful label, he epitomizes the talented, unknown mid – sixties Soul artist.

7.) Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces – “Go Ahead and Burn” (Alabama). The Deep South never sounded so good.

8.) Freddie Scott – “I’ll Be Gone” (Rhode Island). Knock out lost single on the Shout label.

9.) Eddie Floyd – “Big Bird” (Memphis Soul). Lesser known song than his big hit “Knock on Wood”

10.) Johnnie Taylor – “Love Bones” (Memphis Soul). Stax / Volt label magic.


In one evening of playing music we didn’t even scratch the surface of his massive collection of hard to find records. Singers like O.V.Wright and Harold Burrage will have to be saved for another day. After repeated listening to the cd he made for me, I learned more than a few things. Johnny Sayles has Soul. Bobby Moore has Soul. Freddie Scott has Soul. Peter Greenberg has Soul.

Arthur Lee & Love

THE SECRET MUSEUM

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Overt self-promotion:
The Secret Museum will be this week’s presenters at Taosound’s “Psychedelic Saturdaze” beginning at 5:30 on, um, Saturday, June 13 (Taosound: 314 Paseo del Pueblo Norte.) The first hour will feature a selection of Arthur Lee’s finer (and occasionally rarer) moments; the second is devoted to Forever Changes. There will be a Q & A period in between. Jim and I have already prepared the questions.
-Michael Mooney

Jim Webb wrote:

Mike –

What did you think of Michael Stuart-Ware's book Pegasus Carousel, detailing his time as Love's drummer during their "classic" 1966-69 period? The book varied wildly in my opinion between being a fascinating read into Love and the L.A. music scene circa 1967-68, and Ware reliving too many dull moments in his daily routine. He really takes leader Arthur Lee down a few pegs with various stories detailing Arthur's flakiness in canceling big money gigs at the drop of a hat, and his chronic / caustic put downs of other band members and fans. I think Ware was pissed off that everyone looked at Love as only being "Arthur Lee", and that the other guys didn't really matter regardless of how much they contributed to the songs.

Stuart-Ware seems to either think Love leader Arthur Lee’s talent and musical legacy will somehow be diminished by exposing a sarcastic, rude side to his personality or this is just a big payback for all of the drummers’ problems with Arthur. I’m not condoning any arrogant behavior by Arthur toward his band mates or fans, but it is obvious to me the drummer hasn’t gotten over the fact that he didn’t become rich and famous with Love. The drummer feels unappreciated (your kidding!), and thinks it was the collective strength of the musicians in the band that brought them to their peak.

After Love’s masterpiece Forever Changes was released in November1967 the band started to go though numerous personal changes. Drugs, specifically heroin and LSD, have been reported as a contributing major factor in the band becoming dysfunctional. Lee, guitarists John Echols, Ken Forssi and the other main songwriter in the band Bryan MacLean were all using drugs on a regular basis. Lee had an unusual arrangement with their record label Elektra where all royalties went to him, which also created a lot of tension within the band. Stuart-Ware writes about the ongoing financial issues, where they were promised money that never appeared. MacLean left in 1968 and Love was never really the same.

Love never became a big concert draw outside of California. They did some weekend tour dates in the rest of the country, but it was only in their hometown of Los Angeles or in San Francisco that they played regularly. A stable income from concerts would probably have helped the band weather some of their personal changes. Changing band members seemed almost routine for the big L.A. groups in 1967/68. Neil Young quit The Buffalo Springfield, Gene Clark had already left and David Crosby was fired from The Byrds in ’68. The rock scene was so new and continually changing that everyone thought their “next” lineup or group would be even bigger than what they were leaving (ultimately true for Crosby & Young). Big ambition coupled with big egos created a volatile music scene, and Love was no different than the rest of the aspiring groups of that era. Personality conflicts between members, poor management and drugs were three key areas’ that could help break a band apart, and Love had its share of all three.

I’m not knocking Michael Stuart-Ware’s ability as a drummer; I just think he needs to be more realistic about what made Love’s music so unique. It was always the songs that made Love special, and without song writers Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean the band would never have been heard from. Arthur still wrote some great stuff after Michael left, all Stuart-Ware did was supposedly turn down Neil Diamond to drum on a summer tour of his. I did enjoy the book though, because The Pegasus Carousel gave us some interesting anecdotes about Love, and a musician’s view of the Los Angeles music scene in the mid to late sixties. I’m riding with Arthur though on the question of who was the driving force in creating such timeless and varied music for Love. Arthur wasn’t just an above average musician like the other members in Love; he was also an extremely talented songwriter. What made Arthur Lee great was his ability to meld different strands of folk, rock and rhythm n’ blues together into a new beautiful whole. Love’s enduring musical legacy will always be directly associated with him.
-Jim Webb
webbjuice@comcast.net


Michael Mooney wrote:

Jim-

Definitely a case of sour grapes on Michael Stuart’s part, though I don’t know if the Love story could have ended any differently. While Arthur Lee appears to have been fond of playing mind games on both his audience and band mates, it’s doubtful he was capable of playing the music game under any circumstances. Despite the remarkable beauty of his music, Arthur’s work is too full of idiosyncrasies to ever appeal to the mainstream. Still, Forever Changes transcends its time and place, and remains a benchmark Rock recording.
-Michael Mooney

mooney@taosnet.com

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RAW POWER AT TAOSOUND:
Too bad! You missed it. About a dozen people showed up last Saturday for Peter Greenberg’s DJ set at Taosound, a whirlwind blitz of the finest 60s Garage Punk. Peter had the joint rocking with two hours of classic cuts (Seeds, ? & The Mysterians, Trashmen, Rivieras, Elevators, Moving Sidewalks, Sonics, Remains) along with mega-obscurities (Jolly Green Giants, Alarm Clocks, Bad Seeds), all prime examples of America’s Greatest Art Form. Those in attendance got a breathtaking refresher course in Rock 101: Greenberg is the Professor of the Blazing Decks; he’s the North Shore Shaman- dropping 7-inch Sound Neutrons over Paseo Norte every 2 minutes, 5 seconds in an awesome display of turntable pandemonium.
-Michael Mooney