The inspiration for Peter Green's ‘Black Magic Woman’ – subsequently a worldwide million-seller for Carlos Santana – was two-fold: his girlfriend at the time, model Sandra Elsdon, and Otis Rush’s classic ‘All Your Love’. Peter liked to call Sandra his ‘magic mama’ and, as she now recalls bluntly and with fond amusement, when he wrote the lyrics, Peter wasn’t getting his oats: ‘I had decided to be celibate as part of some lofty spiritual quest I was pursuing at the time, and so in that second verse, when Peter sings “Don’t turn your back on me, baby,” his blues are all about frustration!’The melody line Peter developed from the opening notes of ‘All Your Love’. ‘When I was in The Bluesbreakers,’ he explains, ‘John got me started with songwriting, and one of the things he said was that, if you really like something, you should take the first lines and make up another song from them. So that’s what I did with “Black Magic Woman”. But then it turned out sounding more like BB King’s “Help The Poor”.Source: Peter Green: Founder of Fleetwood Mac by Martin CelminsPhoto: Curt Dahlgren
Fleetwood Mac Peter Green - Black Magic Woman (Live Boston Tea Party) 1970