There is another double disc set on Amazon, an import, called The Essential Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Black Magic Woman: The Best of FM is basically the same set, with just a couple of changes. There are 32 tracks on The Essential, 30 on Black Magic Woman. Love That Burns and Stop Messin' Round are two great Peter Green numbers you won't find on BMW, which is unfortunate. A big red flag for me also here is that, out of 30 tunes, fully ten of them are Elmore James covers by Jeremy Spencer. Jeremy was kind of a one-trick pony with his Elmore schtick; to me it got kind of tiring. Yes, Peter Green did covers of BB and Freddy and others, but he was such a colossal talent, and brought so much of his own personality into it, that in some cases, IMHO, his versions eclipsed those of some of the immortal blues legends.
So the plusses here are anything done by PG: Long Grey Mare, Howlin' Wolf's No Place To Go, Merry Go Round (all three of which feature the tasty harmonica talents of Mr. Green), World's In A Tangle, If You Be My Baby (magnificent), Worried Dream (fabulous slow blues), Trying So Hard To Forget (Duster Bennett, I believe, on harp), I Loved Another Woman (another scintillating slow blues), Lazy Poker Blues (NOTE: this one rocks, but it's the studio version, with horns, and it doesn't explode with power like the live version on the Boston Tea Party albums), World Keep On Turning (a wonderful solo country blues-style acoustic number), and the shorter studio version of Need Your Love So Bad, with the violins. Musn't forget that Black Magic Woman and Albatross kick off the discs, but then again, those two appear on practically every early Mac release. These are the studio versions, so you've heard them before. Danny Kirwan is included here, barely: Talk With You, Like Crying, and his instrumental, Jigsaw Puzzle Blues. Sadly missed are Like It This Way and Loving Kind.
So which to buy? Well, it might depend upon how much you are irritated by Jeremy Spencer's imitations of Elmore. Remember, there are nine or ten of them here, which is a huge chunk. Jeremy was a great Elmore impersonator, but that was about it. I'm an early Mac fanatic, and I have neither of these!
I'd heartily recommend Jumping At Shadows: The Blues Years, which is also a double disc set, contains a fair number of "live" versions of some of their greatest tunes, and is of very important historical interest for fans of early FM, in that it has several tunes by the Brunning Sunflower Blues Band, circa '67, as well as some of Peter's work with Duster Bennett. I have long felt that Peter's version of Duster's Jumping At Shadows is right up there with Need Your Love So Bad, as one of the truly immortal masterpieces in the slow blues genre.
Have been searching for an album that epitomised their early blues output and believe this is it. Shame this wasnt released in America where they ended up.For an excellent sound of typical sixties blues efforts and originality by white boy groups this album is right up there,enjoy.
