Virtuoso blues guitarist founded Fleetwood Mac
LONDON — Peter Green, the dexterous blues guitarist who led the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac in a career shortened by psychedelic drugs and mental illness, died Saturday at 73.
A law firm representing his family, Swan Turton, said he died “peacefully in his sleep” and added that a further statement will be issued in the coming days.
To some listeners, Green was the best of the British blues guitarists of the 1960s. B.B. King once said Green “has the sweetest tone I ever heard. He was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”
Green also made his mark as a songwriter with “Albatross,” “Oh Well” and “Black Magic Woman.”
He crashed out of the band in 1971. Even so, Mick Fleetwood said in 2017 that Green deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the band’s success.
“Peter was asked why did he call the band Fleetwood Mac. He said, ‘Well, you know I thought maybe I’d move on at some point and I wanted Mick and John (McVie) to have a band.’ End of story, explaining how generous he was,” said Fleetwood, who described Green as a standout in an era of great guitar work.
Peter Allen Greenbaum was born on Oct. 29, 1946, in London. The gift of a cheap guitar put the 10-year-old Green on a musical path.
He was barely out of his teens when he got his first big break in 1966, replacing Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers — initially for just a week.
In the Bluesbreakers he was reunited with Mick Fleetwood, a former colleague in Peter B’s Looners. Mayall added bass player McVie soon after.
The three left the next year, forming the core of the band initially billed as “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac featuring (guitarist) Jeremy Spencer.”
The band’s early albums were heavy blues-rock affairs marked by Green’s fluid, evocative guitar style and gravelly vocals.
But as the band flourished, Green became increasingly erratic, even paranoid. Drugs played a part in his unraveling.
Green left Fleetwood Mac for good in 1971.
Four years later, the band’s classic lineup featuring Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham gained enormous success with a more pop-tinged sound.
Green was confined to a mental hospital in 1977 after an incident with his manager.
He was released later in the year and married Jane Samuels, a Canadian, in 1978. They had a daughter, Rosebud, and divorced the next year. Green also has a son, Liam Firlej.
Green returned to performing in the 1990s with the Peter Green Splinter Group.
In 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other past and present members of Fleetwood
Mac.