Man of the World - The Anthology 1968-1988

This double-disc overview collection of British super guitarist Peter Green is unique only for the limit of its focus and its seeming willy-nilly sequenced expression of it. If you're a fan, there isn't anything here you don't already have. By concentrating on a 20-year period — and for most of that Green was lost in his own mind — listeners get a solid selection of Green's creative genius with Fleetwood Mac, his spotty early solo records when his disintegration begins, and his tentative but still brilliant first return to music-making as well as a pair of sideman gigs with Bob Brunning's Sunflower Blues Band tossed in for good measure. There are only two live cuts in the batch, Boston Tea Party-era versions of "Black Magic Woman" and a cover of Duster Bennett's "Jumping at Shadows," and a wildly interspersed series of solo album cuts, Mac singles, and LP grooves like the juxtaposition of Green's "Lost My Love" with FM's "Fast Talking Woman Blues." In all, the only new thing here is the packaging and the inventive if problematic assemblage.