Who was the Black Magic Woman? Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac Muse

 Sandra Elsdon : Peter was a sensitive soul and very humble man

I found this really moving and hadn’t known who Peter had written Black Magic Woman for and this is very revealing . . . . . isn’t she lovely?

Sandra Elsdon (now Vigon) is a professional psychotherapist from London and former fashion model. During the '60s and '70s she was close to many rock luminaries, and the girlfriend of both Peter Green and John McVie. Here's how she remembers her time with Peter Green:

"My sister’s boyfriend started one of Britain’s first R&B clubs - 'The Ricky Tick' in Windsor, which has now entered the annals of pop-culture. It was here that I first met such young blues enthusiasts as Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and John Mayall. After gigs we’d all hang out together in clubs like 'The Scotch of St. James’ and 'The Bag o’Nails' (which is how I first met Mick Fleetwood, when he was still with the Cheynes) ; in those days, we were a pretty small group of kids hanging out together, like in college. I first met Peter at a club called 'The Cromwellian', where I also first saw Jimi Hendrix play. Peter wrote 'Black Magic Woman' about me (his nickname for me was Magic Mamma) as well as ‘Sandy Mary’ and ‘Long Grey Mare’. For me, it was the deepest and most soulful relationship of my youth. He was a very dedicated, brilliant, soulful musician, and a very kind and humble man. But he had some pretty deep issues. I think he had suffered a lot as a child. He once opened up to me about the pain of discrimination and bullying he'd suffered as a Jewish boy living in the East End. I think he drew heavily on that pain in his music.

Peter was a sensitive soul, and shouldn’t have messed around with mind-altering drugs. That’s what really activated his psychosis. I remember, when he came home from Fleetwood Mac’s first US tour, how the drugs were starting to have a bad effect on him. I begged him not to experiment more. And at the Wells festival, I had a big fight with him because he was hanging out with Carlos Santana and being plied with everything and anything. Still, things between us were great in the early years. We were on a spiritual quest together. Once, we went to a Buddhist retreat in Scotland, to meditate and learn how to raise our Kundalini energy. This required periods of sexual abstinence, but that didn’t always coincide for us. He makes a reference to that in 'Black Magic Woman' ("Don’t turn your back on me, baby.")

In the end, it took several painful years for us to break up, and I was very unhappy and lost. Peter had left the band, and Fleetwood Mac had invited me to stay at the house in Hampshire that Mick and his wife shared with John and Christine McVie. I had become disillusioned with modeling and was searching for my own identity and creativity. In retrospect, I can see that I had been living a creative life vicariously through Peter Green."

("High 50.com", Oct.2014)

Fleetwood Mac Peter Green - Black Magic Woman (Live Boston Tea Party) 1970