PETER GREEN
29/10/1946 - 25/07/2020

Sad news today from the rock and roll firmament as the news that legendary British blues guitarist Peter Green has left us filters through. Massively influential and way ahead of his time, Green was a towering figure of the frenzied UK blues boom of the mid-60's who took the nascent Fleetwood Mac to the very apex of the scene before - burnt out physically and horrendously emotionally damaged - he walked away and basically disappeared from the music world altogether. He has been a constant in my music listening life for nigh on 40 years and will be sorely missed.

Born to a poor Jewish family in London's East End, Peter Greenbaum taught himself to play the guitar in his early teens before starting a semi-professional career at the age of 15. Performing with bands by the names of The Muskrats and The Tridents, he soon found himself hired by Peter B's Looners where he met Mick Fleetwood who was playing drums. Meanwhile, in another part of London, the famed band leader John Mayall was on the lookout for a new guitarist for his band The Bluesbreakers after the ever-evolving Eric Clapton had left the band to form Cream. Hiring Green was  - in Mayall's own words - "one of the best decisions I've ever made", and the resulting album 'A Hard Road' was a fantastic collection of stomping rockers and laid-back soulful blues classics which also featured two Green compositions. Green himself however needed something more and quickly left The Bluesbreakers to form his own band. Hooking up with old friend Fleetwood - as well as Fleetwood's bass playing mate John McVie and second guitarist Jeremy Spencer - the quartet soon named themselves Fleetwood Mac and over the next three years they released four magnificent albums which were all steeped in the blues, as well as touching on proto-psychedelia, plaintive acoustic ballads and haunting instrumentals, the most famous of which - the peerless 'Albatross' - reached Number One in the UK charts in 1969. Although the band was named after Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, it was always Green's project with his soulful vocals, extraordinary guitar playing and deep, emotionally resonant songwriting all to the fore. Success was instant and Green was lauded across the board with the likes of Eric Clapton regarding him as the best guitarist in the world and blues luminaries such as B.B. King himself stating that Green had "the sweetest tone I've ever heard and the only one out there who gives me the cold sweats". High praise, indeed. Green's songwriting ability was second to none at that time in the late 60's and tunes such as 'Black Magic Woman', 'Oh Well', 'The Green Manalishi' and the utterly spellbinding 'Man Of The World' are all still played today on radio stations across the world.

Sadly, it couldn't last. After the release of the band's incendiary third album 'And Play On', Green and Spencer fell out and a third guitarist - the 18 year old prodigy Danny Kirwan - was drafted in to beef up the group's sound. The inter-band dynamic shifted and Green became more and more introverted and, after taking LSD at a gathering, his already fragile mental state started to suffer further before he then started to spend more and more time at a German commune. His position in the band started to become increasingly untenable and he finally departed the group he had started in late 1970. The years afterward were tough for Green. Not only did he watch from the sidelines as, after a few early teething problems, the new iteration of Fleetwood Mac became one of the biggest bands in the world, but he also suffered severe mental health issues and virtually became a recluse before being diagnosed with schizophrenia and undergoing electroshock therapy at a number of psychiatric institutions. He was also arrested for threatening his accountant with a shotgun - allegedly because he didn't want anymore of his royalty cheques sent to him. Despite all this though, Green started to re-emerge in the late 70's with a series of well-received solo albums and the occasional live performance. And, even though he was still very troubled, he was able to keep things going throughout the 90's too with a new band - The Peter Green Splinter Group - and nine more albums of spiky blues workouts and well-chosen cover versions. In recent years Green had slipped back into the margins again with his Splinter Group on hiatus since 2004 and only the odd live performance. In February of this year however, Mick Fleetwood organised a huge tribute show at The London Palladium to celebrate Green's life which featured many artists who were influenced by Green including David Gilmour, Billy Gibbons, Christine McVie, Steven Tyler, Pete Townshend and Noel Gallagher - as well as early mentor John Mayall. Sadly, Green wasn't in attendance himself but - wonderfully - his old sparring partner Jeremy Spencer turned up and delivered an excoriating version of the old Elmore James standard 'The Sky Is Crying' which was a tune the duo used to trade licks on in the early days. A more fitting tribute to Peter Green I can't think of.
Rest in power, Mr. Green and thank you for the music.