The album, which included “Long Grey Mare” and three other songs by Green, stayed on the British charts for 13 months. The three departed the next year, forming the core of the band initially billed as “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac featuring (guitarist) Jeremy Spencer.”įleetwood Mac 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. Mayall added bass player McVie soon after. In the Bluesbreakers he was reunited with Mick Fleetwood, a former colleague in Peter B’s Looners. Clapton quit for good soon after and Green was in. 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 Greek holiday. The gift of a cheap guitar put the 10-year-old Green on a musical path. Indeed, Green was so fundamental to the band that in its early days it was called Peter Green’s 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 was asked why did he call the band Fleetwood Mac. 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. Green also made a mark as a composer with “Albatross,” and as a songwriter with “Oh Well” and “Black Magic Woman.” He was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”
King once said Green “has the sweetest tone I ever heard. Green, to some listeners, was the best of the British blues guitarists of the 1960s. A further statement will be issued in the coming days. It said he died “peacefully in his sleep” this weekend. 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, has died at 73.Ī law firm representing his family, Swan Turton, announced the death in a statement Saturday. Lawyers representing the family of Peter Green, say in a statement Saturday July 25, 2020, that he has died, aged 73. In this file photo dated Saturday, April 7, 2001, British rock and blues guitarist Peter Green, a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, performing with his own band, Peter Green's Splinter Group, at B.B.