Peter Green was regarded by some fans as the greatest white blues guitarist ever, Eric Clapton notwithstanding. Born Peter Greenbaum but calling himself Peter Green by the age of 15, he grew up in London’s working-class East End. Green’s early musical influences were Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Freddie King, and traditional Jewish music. He originally played bass before being invited in 1966 by keyboardist Peter Bardens to play lead in the Peter B’s, whose drummer was a lanky chap named Mick Fleetwood. The 19-year-old Green was with Bardens just three months before joining John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, whose rapidly shifting personnel included bassist John McVie and drummer Aynsley Dunbar. A keen fan of Clapton, Green badgered Mayall to give him a chance when the Bluesbreakers guitarist split for an indefinite vacation in Greece. Green sounded great and, as Mayall recalls, was not amused when Clapton returned after a handful of gigs, and Green was out.
When Clapton left the band for good six months later to form Cream, Mayall cajoled Green back. Fans were openly hostile because Green was not Clapton, although they came to appreciate Clapton’s replacement. Producer Mike Vernon was aghast when the Bluesbreakers showed up without Clapton to record the album A Hard Road in late 1966, but was won over by Green’s playing. On many tracks you’d be hard-pressed to tell it wasn’t Clapton playing. With an eerie Green instrumental called “The Supernatural,” he demonstrated the beginning of his trademark fluid, haunting style so reminiscent of B.B. King.
When Green left Mayall in 1967, he took McVie and Fleetwood with him to found Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan joined shortly afterward, giving Fleetwood Mac an unusual three-guitar front line. Green was at his peak for the albums Mr. Wonderful, English Rose, Then Play On, and a live Boston Tea Party recording. His instrumental “Albatross” was the band’s first British number one single and “Black Magic Woman” was later a huge hit for Carlos Santana. But Green had been experimenting with acid and his behavior became increasingly irrational, especially after he disappeared for three days of rampant drug use in Munich. He became very religious, appearing on-stage wearing crucifixes and flowing robes. His bandmates resisted his suggestion to donate most of their money to charity, and he left in mid-1970 after writing a harrowing biographical tune called “The Green Manalishi.”
The English blues scene was fixated on technical dexterity, but Green had a deep contempt for show-offs. As he sneered, “Good luck to the Snoggley Blues Band who are growing very popular now in the white blues world with a rhythm guitarist who can play 7,541 notes a minute.”That wasn’t his style — he was all about emotion. “Sumlin and Wolf had it,” Green told Mojo in 1996. “The guitarists who copied them old black players were doing an interpretation, but couldn’t get to the feeling behind it. It was too deep, too painful if you do it right. It got too deep for me anyway. It ended up hurting my soul so I started to make up stories instead.”
“Jumping at Shadows” tells the whole Peter Green story in five minutes. He takes the song from U.K. bluesman Duster Bennett, but turns it into his own haunted autobiography. There’s no other rock & roll sound quite like the ache of Peter Green’s guitar. That’s why he’ll alway be remembered, and that’s why the music world is mourning his death at 73. Fifty years after he left Fleetwood Mac, his classics — “Love That Burns,” “Before the Beginning,” “Black Magic Woman” — still sting. The Mac hit Number One with his blissed-out space-surf instrumental “Albatross,” so great the Beatles copped it for Abbey Road, turning it into “Sun King.”
After a bitter, rambling solo album called The End of the Game, Green saddened fans when he hung up his guitar, although helped the Mac complete a tour when Spencer suddenly joined the Children of God in Los Angeles and quit the band. Green’s chaotic odyssey of almost a decade included rumors that he was a grave digger, a bartender in Cornwall, a hospital orderly, and a member of an Israeli commune. When an accountant sent him an unwanted royalty check, Green confronted his tormentor with a gun, although it was unloaded. He went to jail briefly before being transferred to an asylum.
Green emerged in the late ’70s and early ’80s with albums In the Skies, Little Dreamer, White Sky, and Kolors, which variously featured Bardens, Robin Trower drummer Reg Isidore, and Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks. He reprised the Then Play On Mac standard “Rattlesnake Shake” on Fleetwood’s solo 1981 album, The Visitor. British author Martin Celmins wrote Green’s biography in 1995. Psychologically troubled, on medication, and hardly playing the guitar for most of the ’90s, the reclusive Green resumed sporadic recording in the second half of the decade. He surfaced unexpectedly from time to time, most prominently on January 12, 1998, when Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In a rare, perfect moment, Green jammed with fellow inductee Santana on “Black Magic Woman.”
There is a 2016 Peter Green film documentary, available on DVD: Man Of The World – The Peter Green Story
B.B. King commented, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”
Peter Green died in his sleep at his home on July 25, 2020; he was 73 years old.
Ref: AllMusic ; Rolling Stone
Discography:
With Fleetwood Mac:
Fleetwood Mac (1968)
Mr. Wonderful (1968)
English Rose (1969) USA
Then Play On (1969)
Penguin (1973) Track 8 “Night Watch” (uncredited)
Tusk (1979) Track 13 “Brown Eyes” (uncredited)
Solo:
The End of the Game (1970) Reprise RS 6436 [US]
In the Skies (1979) PVK Records
Little Dreamer (1980) PVK Records
Whatcha Gonna Do? (1981) PVK Records
White Sky (1982) Creole/Headline
Kolors (1983) Creole/Headline
A Case for the Blues (with Katmandu) (1984)
Nightflite NTFL 2001
Archival Releases:
The Original Fleetwood Mac (CBS, 1971)
Live at the Marquee, 1967 (released 1992)
Live at the BBC (released 1995) (UK #48)
Masters: London Live ’68 (released 1998)
Live at the Boston Tea Party, Vols. 1–3 recorded Feb 5–7, 1970 (Snapper, 1998–2000)
The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac: 1968 to 1970 (2 CD) (1998)
Shrine ’69 (live 1969, released 1999)
Original Fleetwood Mac: The Blues Years (3 CD) (Castle, 2000)
Boston Blues (2 CD) (Recall/Snapper, 2000)
Show-Biz Blues: 1968 to 1970 Volume 2 (2 CD) (Castle/Sanctuary, 2001)
Jumping at Shadows: The Blues Years (Castle/Sanctuary, 2002)
Men of the World: The Early Years (3 CD) (Sanctuary, 2005)
Sacramento’s K-ZAP 93.3 FM plays Peter Green. All part of 50 years of Rock, Blues and More, 24-7 on our station’s stream at K-ZAP.ORG/LISTEN/
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