[BklynBlue]

I think that the fact that Kirwan gave Green someone to "work off of" was vitally important to Green. Spencer chose not to collaborate (or so everything that I've read seems to indicate) and although they are a fine rhythm section, Messrs McVie & Fleetwood didn't seem to do a lot of the creative "heavy lifting".
The opportunity to "hide" can be extremely liberating -look at Mike Bloomfield's work with Al Kooper and Nick Gravenites and closer to Green, Eric Clapton - the leap from the Bluesbreakers to Cream is amazing - the studio recordings with Derek & the Dominos, when he had Duane Allman to play off of is one of his finest moments - Clapton's recordings from the seventies and eighties varied wildly depending on the band he was with and how hard the producer was willing to push him -
That's what was missing from the early FM - and to a certain extent it still haunts the Splinter Group - you rarely get the sense of the members coming together, working towards a common goal - you can hear it in later live shows with FM, but rarely in the studio -
Some of my favorite recordings of Green's are when he was playing sessions - with Bob Brunning, Otis Spann - there's a sense of joy and ease to his playing - he actually seems to be enjoying himself - you can hear it even now, when you listen to "Hot Foot Powder" -
It's just a shame that Green and Kirwan couldn't make a stronger connection - I think, together, they could have scaled even greater heights than those that they did