Holy Cow (man)! Previously unknown Green guest session found?
 

I was recently tipped off about a possibly previously “unknown” Green guest session with a link to a Wikipedia page about a song called, ‘Cowman, Milk Your Cow’.
Recorded by Adam Faith, it was written by, and contains backing and harmony vocals from the Brothers Gibb (The Bee Gees).
Recorded and released in 1967, the number is what is now called “popsike”; a pop music ballad with lightly psychedelic overtones. It is actually not that bad, for what it is.
What does Peter Green have to do with any of this? Listening to the number, I would say absolutely nothing, yet according to the Wiki page, quoting from another website, which in turn got the information from the liner notes to an out of print CD, Green plays guitar on the track.

The CD in question is “Songbook – The Gibb Brothers by Others (Connoisseur Collection 1993). This disc has apparently been replaced by “The Bee Gees Songbook” (Music Club 2004). Where the earlier collection contained twenty songs, the new one is has only seventeen, with Faith’s number among the missing.
I’d love to see the liner notes to original CD as the recording information provided for the song (found on another website) is as follows:

Adam Faith — vocal
Russ Ballard — guitar
Pete Salt — guitar
‘Mod’ Rogan — bass
Bob Henrit — drums
possibly Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb — vocal
engineer: ?
producer: ?
July or August 1967, London

Ballard, Rogan and Henrit were The Roulettes, Faith’s backing band – the other guitarist listed, “Pete Salt” was not then, or ever was, a member of that band. If there was a second guitarist brought in for the session, he also wasn’t named “Pete Salt”, as I can find no other information concerning anyone with that name.

The Wiki page also has the number being recorded in Denmark.
Further research shows that the person posting the page confused the information found in a book on the Bee Gees “The Bee Gees: Tales of the Brothers Gibb” by Hector Cook, Melinda Bilyeu & Andrew Mon Hughes about the song being recorded in a “little studio” off of Denmark Street in London (the Regent Sound Studios).
The recording information found in “Complete Faith” 6CD Adam Faith set has recording date as August 22, 1967, and the session being done at Abbey Road Studios. (Faith’s records were released by Parlaphone in the U.K., an EMI subsidiary. EMI artists recorded at Abbey Road Studios)
The credits also only list Russ Ballard on guitar.

Okay, so the question remains: how did the author of the liner notes came to the conclusion that “Pete Salt” was a pseudonym for Peter Green?
I have no idea!

July and August of 1967 was when Green was putting together Fleetwood Mac, and while he did do a session with Aynsley Dunbar and Jack Bruce around that time, that was a “one-off” put together by Mike Vernon. As far as I know (which admittedly isn’t very far), he never had any connection to anyone involved in the Faith recording, or at EMI or had even ever recorded anything at Abbey Road, or Regent Sound Studios.

More importantly, I cannot hear Green’s guitar on the finished track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uWtF1E0Otc

If (by some miracle) anyone has the original “Songbook” CD and if the liner notes provide any further information about this, please share.

Gov't Mule Robert Johnson Tribute show
 

Haven't seen anyone mention Peter playing at the Robert Johnson Tribute Concert with Gov't Mule 9/26/98.

link to sugarmegs web site and notes on that show of Peter with Government Mule:

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/a...998-09-26.html

Hope the link works. :)
-Al

please help me, folks: what's all this got to do with the question regarding the adam faith session? wrong thread or wrong thread? :confused:

but to set the train back on the original rails: highly unthinkable that peter was involved in this recording in any way, isn't it?! would probably be the most surprising discovery in his discography - if actually confirmed!

I agree, lazy poker. The Peter Green connection to the Adam Faith track seems far-fetched. Like BklynBlue, I can't hear any obvious trace of his guitar style on the track, and it just doesn't sound like the kind of song he would have been interested in working on in 1967. The only reason I can think of for how he could possibly have been involved in something like this would have been some connection by friendship with one of the principle artists connected with the Adam Faith record.

It does not seem to be an unusual occurrence for people to claim the involvement of a well-known musician on an obscure track recorded by someone else, so my suspicion is that's all there is to this.

I'm certain that it has nothing to do with the original question...
As threads go, they sometimes flow into other topics.
I just happen to have that concert with Pete and the Mule and remembered it when he mentioned it.
Just information for people, nothing more, nothing less.

no probs with you, al, not at all! :xoxo:
i just couldn't (and still cannot) see how thomas potts came to throw in this remark in a thread about a questionable '67 recording session. and how the one came "flowing" into the other remains mysterious to me as well. i just wanted to know if there's any adventurous connection that i might have missed out on. peace to all and everyone!
martin

Previously unknown Green guest
 

Just threw it in because people may not have known about it. It really is nothing special but completist may want it and it is available.

. . . alright, thomas, but it's just a DIFFERENT topic that should be another thread on its own - that's all. peace!

but again - back to the "cowman": the wikipedia site on the bee gee's "horizontal" album states the even wilder claim that the whole BLUESBREAKERS were involved in this recording:
"Around July or August, Barry and Robin wrote 'Cowman, Milk Your Cow', which was recorded by Adam Faith, with the Gibb brothers on background vocals. With Faith on lead vocals, the Gibb brothers on background vocals, Russ Ballard, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Pete Salt on guitar (though one source would suggest the latter was in fact Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green) and Bob Henrit on drums."
now what's the next step - "cowman" being a fleetwood mac recording with adam faith on vocals or what? :lol:

Well ,several of the protagonists are still alive and could confirm this if it was true.if we could somehow contact them ! Peter himself ,whos memory seems remarkably acute considering what he's been through, could confirm it !

On a slightly different tack ,I agree there's nothing on the track that sounds like Peter.s guitar playing , BUT, if I had heard Albatross without knowing who had performed it , at the height of Peter's no compromise blues stance I'm sure I would never have guessed it was his playing or that he composed it ! This to me this just indicates that there were (still are ?) hidden depths to the man, his no compromise (public )blues attitude at the time tleft no outlet for his early Hank Marvin,etc influences through Fleetwood Mac ,and may have paradoxically,encouraged forays into such recordings (this is not proof of course !)

Is there any trumpet on the track? There used to be a Peter Salt that played trumpet on records back then. This is not to say it's proof PG isn't on it as he still could be but it would at least lay that part of it being a pseudonym for PG to rest.

John

Pete Salt is a pseudonym, but not for Peter Green.
This was apparently a name used by Pete Thorp (sometimes spelled with an “e”: Thorpe – as if the whole thing wasn’t confusing enough). Why he came to use this name, I’ve no idea…
Thorp / Thorpe was an early member of The Roulettes – I believe that whoever put together the first session information found a listing of all of the members of The Roulettes, past and present and used that for the musician listing. Information about the band would indicate that he was no longer playing with them at the time of the Faith recording.

At least we could track down the secondary source for the claim that Green was on the track, but now John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers are said to have been on the track?!
The Bluesbreakers of July / August 1967 consisted of: Mick Taylor, John McVie, Keef Hartley and Chris Mercer and Rip Kant on saxophones. If Mayall was brought in on a session it would most likely have been for his harmonica or nine-string guitar.
There is absolutely nothing on the track to make one think that any of these musicians are on this track.

THD makes an excellent point of being careful not to allow our expectations of what we believe we should be hearing (especially in the case of Green) deceive us, this “new” statement about The Bluesbreakers almost seems like a joke. I’m surprised that no one has put the prolific session player Jimmy Page in the studio with them also.

Unlike Page, Green’s professional world (at that time), and to a certain extent, Mayall’s also, was extremely limited. After The Peter B’s and Shotgun Express, he only people that he worked with were through his association with Mike Vernon.
It was only after he left Fleetwood Mac that Green began to work with a much wider group of musicians. I cannot imagine how he would have been involved with Faith session.

I'm guessing that there's nothing more to this than someone believing that "Pete Salt" was Peter Green and then jumping to the odd conclusion that the Bluesbreakers must have somehow been involved. Again, it sounds like an example of someone trying to tie a well-known name to a more obscure artist or recording in an effort to validate them.

Good detective work on uncovering the identity of "Pete Salt", BklynBlue!

agreed, sharksfan: this seems to be the core of the whole affair to me, too - all thesises that have been thrown in on this matter notwithstanding!
but ain't it a lot of fun trying to track down mysteries like that . . . even if it all leads to nowhere in the end. :)