[BklynBlue]

While I would never pretend to be knowledgeable enough about “classical” music to recognize a composer’s work from a mere forty seconds of music (I probably wouldn’t recognize more than a few of the “Masters”, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, if I heard the entire symphony); but I doubt that what is heard in ‘Searching for Madge’ was lifted from an existing score.
What is it then? Excellent question, and one we will probably get a satisfactory answer to, like so many questions surrounding the “Then Play On” sessions.
In June of 1969, Green did an interview with New Musical Express where he talked of a classical composition that he wrote, (lasting all of three and a half minutes) that he would have a full orchestra record soon.
I believe that he would have needed to bring someone in to write an actual score.
It was also around this time that there was a press release about Green and Spencer collaborating on an orchestral and choral suite revolving around their shared religious beliefs.
We have no way of knowing if these projects ever got past the planning stages, but there are strings heard on the two covers that Clifford Davis did around this time, ‘Man of the World’ and ‘Before the Beginning’.
I believe that the music heard in ‘Searching for Madge’ was recorded by the musicians brought in to play on the Davis recordings.
Was the piece part of a longer work, written by Green? We unfortunately have no way of knowing.
What I wouldn’t give to have access to the Warner-Reprise vaults, with the tapes and the studio logs.
With so much material from this time frame finding its way on to the two out-take collections, “The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac” and “Show-Biz Blues” the label may have felt that a “box-set” collection of the “Then Play On” sessions would seem redundant (we of course have no way of knowing how much more there is) but it seems like lost opportunity to me.
Warner Bros. Film pioneered the burn to order DVD trade, making films with otherwise limited commercial appeal available; I can’t see why they wouldn’t mine their vast musical catalog for something similar.