The Pious Bird of Good Omen is a compilation album by the British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac, released in 1969. It consists of their first four non-album UK singles and their B-sides, one track from their first album Fleetwood Mac, two tracks from their second album Mr. Wonderful, and two tracks by the blues artist Eddie Boyd with backing by members of Fleetwood Mac. These came from Boyd's album 7936 South Rhodes.
Release The album was released under the Blue Horizon, which had published all of their material up until the "Man of the World" single, which was instead issued by Immediate Records. By the time Pious Bird of Good Omen was released, the band had left Immediate Records and were searching for a new record label.
The Pious Bird of Good Omen was not released in the US. The closest US equivalent is the English Rose compilation album, released in December 1968 and sharing four songs with Pious Bird.
CBS reissued The Pious Bird of Good Omen in 1981 under the Nice Price catalogue campaign, which made several of the label's albums available to retailers at a discounted price. In 2002, the album was repackaged by Sony BMG as Greatest Hits with cover art very closely resembling the 1971 Greatest Hits album, and with "Shake Your Moneymaker" and "Love That Burns" added to the track listing.
In 2004, when Fleetwood Mac's Blue Horizon era albums were remastered, Pious Bird was reconfigured to remove tracks from the previous two Mac albums and the Boyd tracks, which were replaced by archival recordings from the 1967 and 1968 period.
Reception Reaction to The Pious Bird of Good Omen has been highly positive. It was described as "excellent" by the Rolling Stone Album Guide. Reviewing the 1981 reissue of the album, Record Business called it "a good buy for anyone who doesn't already own most of the tracks." TeamRock ranked the album in the "20 Greatest Blues Albums: 1967-70".
Track listing
2004 release
* Bonus track
Credits Fleetwood Mac Peter Green – vocals, guitar, harmonica Jeremy Spencer – vocals, slide guitar, piano Danny Kirwan – vocals, electric guitar (on side 2, tracks 1 and 4) John McVie – bass guitar Mick Fleetwood – drums
Additional musicians Eddie Boyd – vocals, piano (on side 1, track 4 and side 2, track 3) Christine Perfect – keyboards, piano (on side 1, track 2 and side 2, track 6) Steve Gregory – alto saxophone (on side 1, track 2 and side 2, track 6) Dave Howard – alto saxophone (on side 1, track 2 and side 2, track 6) Johnny Almond – tenor saxophone (on side 1, track 2 and side 2, track 6) Roland Vaughan – tenor saxophone (on side 1, track 2 and side 2, track 6)
Technical staff Mike Vernon – producer Mike Ross – engineer
2004 release Fleetwood Mac Peter Green – vocals (except on tracks 3, 4, 5, and 7), guitar (except on tracks 3 and 4), harmonica (on tracks 2 and 3) Jeremy Spencer – vocals (on tracks 3 and 4), guitar (on tracks 3 and 4), piano (on track 4) Danny Kirwan – vocals (on track 8), guitar (on track 5, 7, and 8) John McVie – bass guitar (except on track 2, 3, and 8) Mick Fleetwood – drums (except on track 8) Bob Brunning – bass guitar (on track 3)
Additional musicians Christine Perfect – piano (on track 9), organ (on tracks 10, and 11)
Steve Gregory – tenor saxophone (on track 10 and 11) Mickey "Guitar" Baker – string arrangement (on track 1, 10, and 11)
Terry Noonan – director of strings and horns (on tracks 1, 10, and 11)
Technical staff Mike Vernon – producer Mike Ross – engineer
Charts + Chart performance for The Pious Bird of Good Omen Chart (1969) Peakposition
References