Just In: Fleetwood Mac Guitarist Peter Green Dies At 73
The death of Popular guitarist, Peter Green, who led the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, has been announced by a law firm, Swan Turton, representing his family.
Green died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 73 on Saturday, 25th July 2020.
More details will be divulged in the coming days.
Green was among 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 a mark as a composer and songwriter.
He left Fleetwood Mac in 1971. Even so, Mick Fleetwood said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2017 that Green deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the band’s success.
Indeed, Green was so fundamental to the band that in its early days it was called Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.
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 1965 after Clapton abruptly took off for a holiday.
Clapton quit for good soon after and Green was in.
In the Bluesbreakers, he was reunited with Mick Fleetwood, a former colleague. Mayall added bass player John McVie soon after.
The three departed the next year, forming the core of the band Fleetwood Mac.
The group made its debut at the British Blues and Jazz festival in the summer of 1967, which led to a recording contract, then an eponymous first album in February 1968.
The album, which included “Long Grey Mare” and three other songs by Green, stayed on the British charts for 13 months.
The band’s early albums were heavy blues-rock affairs marked by Green’s fluid, evocative guitar style and gravelly vocals.
Notable singles included “Oh Well” and the Latin-flavored “Black Magic Woman,” later a hit for Carlos Santana.
May his soul rest in perfect peace.
