Pious Bird of Good Omen was originally released in 1969 as a compilation of the band's bluesy roots: their first four UK singles and their B-sides and two tracks by bluesman Eddie Boyd with Fleetwood Mac backing. The title of the album is a phrase found in an 1817 gloss (marginal note) to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In contrast to their poppy sound of the 70s, Fleetwood Mac actually started out in the sixties as a psychedelic blues band under guitarist Peter Green's lead.

Some CD releases circa 1999-2005 vary contents to reflect different leftovers of a Blue Horizon reissue program. The original 1969 compilation has the first four non-album singles and their b-sides plus two tracks from the second album, Mr Wonderful and two tracks with Green, McVie and Fleetwood backing bluesman Eddie Boyd.Its use as an album title as well as the album art is a sly wink to the featuring of the band's number 1 UK hit " Albatross". All the reviews of this album and the Wikipedia page, say that both these songs come from Boyd’s album 7936 South Rhodes on which the three Mac members played.

What the CD version I originally, unwittingly, bought had five versions of that song but it doesn’t end there, none of the versions of that song were the single version on the original album and it starts with a version with loads of studio chat on it. In 2002, the tracks from this album were repackaged by Sony BMG and released as a new collection with cover art very closely resembling the Greatest Hits album (1971), but with the addition of " Shake Your Moneymaker" and "Love That Burns". Danny Kirwin is the magician guitarist of those early years and he stayed with the group in albums, such as "Then play on", "Kiln house", "Bare trees", and "Future games" when Bob Welsh joined as a lead wizard guitarist. The Pious Bird of Good Omen is a compilation album by the British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac, released in 1969.

Quel régal de réécouter des titres comme: "Albatross", "black magic woman", jigsaw puzzle blues", pour ne citer qu'eux, que l'on écoutait dans les juke box à l'époque. The phrase refers to the albatross killed in the poem ("The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen"). This is the CD version of the original LP, not the cut down one with 4 different versions of Need your Love so bad on it. The B-side features the international hit single "Albatross" and Peter Green's composition "Black Magic Woman", the latter being popularized by Santana's version in 1970. The US-only compilation English Rose was a similar package, sharing four songs with this album, and was released earlier in 1969.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I have no beef with the later Mac but for me this album depicts what was great about the original band.I am confidently awaiting the arrival of my new, Music On Vinyl, vinyl 2012 edition that should be the correct track listing. Very nice clean pressing with some great tracks including Black Magic Woman and two tracks backing pianist Eddie Boyd. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.