Peter Green (musician)
Peter Allen Greenbaum (29 October 1946 – 25 July 2020),[1][2] known professionally as Peter Green, was an English blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist.[3] As the founder of Fleetwood Mac, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Green founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 after a stint in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and quickly established the new band as a popular live act in addition to a successful recording act, before departing in 1970. Green's songs, such as "Albatross", "Black Magic Woman", "Oh Well", "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and "Man of the World", appeared on singles charts, and several have been adapted by a variety of musicians.
Peter Green
Peter Allen Greenbaum
29 October 1946
Bethnal Green, London, England
25 July 2020 (aged 73)
Canvey Island, Essex, England
- Singer-songwriter
- musician
- Guitar
- vocals
- harmonica
1961–2020
Green was a major figure in the "second great epoch"[4] of the British blues movement. Eric Clapton praised his guitar playing, and B.B. King commented, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats."[5][6][7] His trademark sound included string bending, vibrato, emotionally expressive tone, and economy of style.[4][8]
In June 1996, Green was voted the third-best guitarist of all time in Mojo magazine.[9][10] In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked him at number 58 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[11] Green's tone on the instrumental "The Supernatural" was rated as one of the 50 greatest of all time by Guitar Player in 2004.[12]
Biography[edit]
1946–1965: Early life and career[edit]
Peter Allen Greenbaum was born in Bethnal Green, London, on 29 October 1946, into a Jewish family,[13] the youngest of Joe and Ann Greenbaum's four children. His brother, Michael, taught him his first guitar chords and by the age of 11, Green was teaching himself. He began playing professionally by the age of 15, while working for a number of east London shipping companies. He first played bass guitar in a band called Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes, which performed pop chart covers and rock 'n' roll standards, including Shadows covers. He later stated that Hank Marvin was his guitar hero and he played the Shadows' song "Midnight" on the 1996 tribute album Twang. He went on to join a rhythm and blues outfit, the Muskrats, then a band called the Tridents in which he played bass. By Christmas 1965 Green was playing lead guitar in Peter Bardens' band "Peter B's Looners", where he met drummer Mick Fleetwood. It was with Peter B's Looners that he made his recording début with the single "If You Wanna Be Happy" with "Jodrell Blues" as a B-side.[14] His recording of "If You Wanna Be Happy" was an instrumental cover of a song by Jimmy Soul.[15] In 1966, Green and some other members of Peter B's Looners formed another act, Shotgun Express, a Motown-style soul band which also included Rod Stewart, but Green left the group after a few months.[2]
1966–1967: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers[edit]
In October 1965, before joining Bardens' group, Green had the opportunity to fill in for Eric Clapton in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers for four gigs. Soon afterwards, when Clapton left the Bluesbreakers, Green became a full-time member of Mayall's band from July 1966.[4]
Mike Vernon, a producer at Decca Records recalls Green's début with the Bluesbreakers:
Musical style[edit]
Robin Denselow in The Guardian described Green as being "interested in expressing emotion in his songs, rather than showing off how fast he could play".[48] He has been praised for his swinging shuffle grooves and soulful phrases and favoured the minor mode and its darker blues implications. His distinct tone can be heard on "The Supernatural", an instrumental written by Green for John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' 1967 album A Hard Road. This song demonstrates Green's control of harmonic feedback.[4] The sound is characterised by a shivering vibrato, clean cutting tones, and a series of ten-second sustained notes. These tones were achieved by Green controlling feedback on a Les Paul guitar.[12]
Equipment[edit]
Early in his career, Green played a Harmony Meteor, an inexpensive hollow-body guitar. He began playing a Gibson Les Paul with the Peter B's, a guitar which was often referred to as his "magic guitar". Though he played other guitars, he is best known for deriving a unique tone from his 1959 Les Paul.[6][49] Green later sold it to Northern Irish guitarist Gary Moore for all the money Moore could get by selling his Gibson SG guitar. Green had bought the guitar after his first spell with Mayall but before joining the Peter B's, for £114 from Selmers in Charing Cross Road. In 2014, Kirk Hammett of Metallica bought the guitar. Hammett has stated that he paid quite a bit less than $1m for it, being in the right place when the guy who was selling it needed some cash.[50]
In the 1990s, Green played a 1960s Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion model, using Fender Blues DeVille and Vox AC30 amplifiers.[4] Towards the very end of his playing days, the Gibson ES-165 saw more use.[39]
By the time of his death, Green had accumulated more than 150 electric and acoustic guitars and other instruments. They were sold at auction by Bonhams of London in June 2023. The sale also included amps and equipment, programmes, records, letters, sketchbooks, and handwritten lyrics.[51][52] A 1968 Gretsch White Falcon semi-acoustic and a 1931 National Duolian Resonator each sold for £38,400, and a 1999 Fender Strat USA Custom Shop relic guitar fetched £23,040.[53] Green's handwritten lyrics of Man of the World were expected to fetch between £40,000 and £60,000.[54] Some of the instruments were exhibited at the Guitar Show in Birmingham in February 2023.[55][56]
Influence and legacy[edit]
Many rock guitarists have cited Green as an influence, including Gary Moore,[57] Joe Perry of Aerosmith,[58] Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash,[59] and more recently, Mark Knopfler,[60] Noel Gallagher, and Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood.[61] Green was The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson's pick in Guitar World's "30 on 30: The Greatest Guitarists Picked by the Greatest Guitarists" (2010). In the same article Robinson cites Jimmy Page, with whom the Crowes toured: "he told us so many Peter Green stories. It was clear that Jimmy loves the man's talent".[7] Green's songs have been recorded by artists such as Santana, Aerosmith, Status Quo,[62] The Black Crowes, Midge Ure,[63] Tom Petty,[64] Judas Priest,[65] and Gary Moore, who recorded Blues for Greeny, an album of Green compositions. In 1995, the tribute album Rattlesnake Guitar: The Music of Peter Green was released, and subsequently was reissued in 2000 as Peter Green Songbook.
Personal life[edit]
Green married Jane Samuels in January 1978; the couple divorced in 1979. They had a daughter.[66]
Enduring periods of mental illness and destitution throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Green moved in with his older brother Len and Len's wife Gloria, and his mother in their house in Gorleston near Great Yarmouth, where a process of recovery began.[15][67]
He lived for a period on Canvey Island, Essex,[68] where he died on 25 July 2020 at the age of 73.[2][69]