Farewell, Green Manalishi

This week the music world lost a seminal figure in rock and blues with the passing of singer, songwriter and guitarist Peter Green. Known peripherally to the average rock and roll fan, Green’s name might be more familiar than his body of work thanks to the subsequent stardom of the band he initially created.

Fleetwood Mac began in 1967 as a follow-up to Green’s tenure as lead guitarist in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the premiere British blues act of the era.

With the Bluesbreakers’ John McVie and Mick Fleetwood on bass and drums, respectively, the Mac rivaled the popularity of their former group and showcased Green’s signature guitar approach in addition to his soulful interpretations of blues standards. Green also wrote original blues numbers, rapidly evolving into a progressive style that produced the fan favorites, “Albatross”, “Oh Well”, and “Black Magic Woman” which Santana famously covered in 1970.

In Chicago, on a single day(January 4th, 1969), the band prolifically recorded two albums of blues recordings at Chess Studios with a group of their musical heroes that included Willie Dixon, Otis Spann and Buddy Guy. But in the Sixties, music and style were in a constant state of change and Green’s mind was in equal flux.

He soon began a downward spiral of disillusionment and drug addiction, resulting in his decision to quit the band in 1970. Giving away his belongings and walking away from music at the height of his fame, he cited religion as one of the factors in ditching the band he founded four years earlier.

Many point to a single incidental detour as the breaking point in Green’s life. During a tour of Europe, Green attended an LSD party at a commune in Munich. It was soon after this event and his sudden associations with the commune’s members that Green exhibited noticeable changes in his mental state and extreme ideologies (Fleetwood Mac’s guitarist Danny Kirwan was said to have been with him at the commune, experiencing a concurrent decline in his own mental health).

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Green dropped out of the music scene altogether, at one point finding work digging graves. By this time, his former band was enjoying a level of commercial success that couldn’t have been imagined ten years earlier.

In time, Green triumphantly bounced back with the assistance of family and friends and he began playing guitar and recording again, much to the delight of his loyal fans.

Recently, I had been thinking how time might be running out for the original Mac to reunite and perform again. It surely would have been an overdue occasion and an historical event to witness. Now, with Peter Green’s death it will never come to be. Are there any heroes you have missed due to the passage of time? Hopefully, you’ll still have some chances, but you might need to act soon.

“‘Cause there’s very few of us left, my friend,
from the days that used to be.” -Neil Young

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Swift and Sizzlin’

In recent months, the restaurant industry has seen a dramatic change in its traditional practices, forcing companies to alter their business models and rethink their style of operations amid lockdowns and stringent state health orders.

While many independent dine-in restaurants have switched to take-out or moved to outdoor seating, fast food chains that offer drive-through service have proven popular as occasional substitutes for grocery shopping. Consumers are ordering fast food perhaps less frequently but with increasingly larger quantities for substantial food orders as opposed to quick bites on the go.

Omnipresent fast food chains have long been a source of convenience in a consistently busy culture and invariably revise and improve their menus and strategies to meet their customers’ growing needs.

One of the most recognized and trusted brands in the world is, undeniably, McDonald’s. The ubiquitous Golden Arches trademark that instantly signifies the hamburger chain is practically symbolic of the country that produced it, boasting over $21 billion in revenue a year, making it the largest restaurant chain in the world.

Its humble beginnings in the 1940s began when Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their first burger eatery in San Bernardino, California.

McDonalds' Ray Kroc

After the McDonald brothers were bought out by franchisee Ray Kroc in 1961, the corporate empire we know today began its inevitable global proliferation that shows little signs of slowing down.

How did the illustrious Colonel Sanders fit into all of this, you might ask? Well, the Indiana native who worked in a procession of jobs with little success was eventually selling home style meals at a Kentucky Shell service station by 1930. As his local appeal became more recognized, he was made an honorary Kentucky colonel in 1935 by the state governor. It was an arbitrary honor that he would use to his advantage as a slick and crafty gimmick.

KFC's Colonel Sanders

By 1940 the Colonel was perfecting his “secret recipe” of herbs and spices used to enhance his fried chicken while pioneering the method of pressure cooking chicken as opposed to the slower pan frying method. In the 1950s he was traveling the country, pitching Kentucky Fried Chicken and its secret recipe to potential franchisees and assisting in restaurant openings.

By the mid-Sixties, there were over 600 KFCs and the aging Sanders had sold the corporation for $2 million but remained on as a spokesman and company ambassador. He continued to monitor franchisees’ quality with notorious shrewdness, particularly protective of his gravy and his eleven herbs and spices recipes. In fact, the trademark secret recipe is contained in the KFC headquarters vault, sent to locations from two separate distributors.

Wendy as company logo

So who is Wendy? Her name is actually Melinda Lou Morse but as a child she posed for a 1969 photograph in a blue and white dress sporting red pigtails. That image became the famous company logo for Wendy’s fast food hamburger chain. Her father, Dave Thomas was the head cook at an Indiana restaurant in the 1950s when Colonel Sanders showed up to sell his KFC brand to the owners.

The Colonel appreciated what the young Thomas had to offer and the two began plans to improve the franchise’s quality and reach. Thomas recommended that the Colonel appear in advertisements to further the franchise’s image. As Kentucky Fried Chicken gained its momentum, Thomas’s investments became instrumental in founding his own highly successful “old-fashioned hamburger” franchise with over 6,000 locations, for which Thomas would serve as a spokesman, acting in over 800 TV commercials until his death in 2002.

Dave Thomas and daughter Wendy

Today fast food is synonymous with the frantic lifestyles many Americans lead. Though nutrition tends to take a back seat to the growing need for fast service and quick calorie consumption, fast food fills an obvious void and its quality and appeal are manifested in its dominance throughout many lifestyles and cultures in all corners of the world.

Are you ‘on the go?’ Are your routines dictated by those necessities? Can you find a balance between them? That’s the trick, isn’t it?

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