Green’s discontinuous solo career began with the all-instrumental 1970 solo album “End of the Game.” But his escalating psychiatric problems, diagnosed later as schizophrenia and treated with electroconvulsive therapy, led to his arrest in 1977 after he threatened to shoot his accountant with a pump-action rifle. However, Green’s disillusionment with the music business, deepening involvement with psychedelic drugs and mental instability led him to exit the band in May 1970, days after the release of the doom-infused, keening single “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” his last work as a member of Fleetwood Mac. major label deal that it would retain for 50 years. ![]() The band rapidly morphed into a powerful and versatile hard rock unit that won a growing fan base in America with its live shows it scored a U.S. Green’s dreamy, Santo & Johnny-inspired instrumental “Albatross” - which John Lennon said influenced his song “Sun King,” on the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album - reached the top of the U.K. ![]() With the addition in 1968 of a third guitarist, teenage phenom Danny Kirwan, Fleetwood Mac began to move beyond the blues into more expressive musical territory. One Green “original” of this era, the minor-key “Black Magic Woman” – essentially a straight lift of Chicago guitarist Otis Rush’s classic 1958 recording “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” – became a No. With co-lead guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Spencer, Green fronted a powerful quartet that delivered a stirring brace of Chicago blues covers and some of their own similarly styled material. After only a year and one album with Mayall, he exited to start up his own band, which he christened Fleetwood Mac in honor of his Mayall colleagues who ultimately became its rhythm section, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Green’s liquid tone (produced on a 1959 Gibson Les Paul) and lyrical, imaginative solo work instantly made him one of England’s most highly rated guitarists. Indeed, in 1966, Mayall helped establish Green as a guitar hero when he hired the 20-year-old musician to replace Eric Clapton in his blues-rock unit the Bluesbreakers. While Fleetwood Mac are best known for their breezy pop hits of their Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham lineup, the incarnation of the group formed by Green in 1967 was a classic British electric blues outfit, not as swinging as the Rolling Stones or as heavy as Cream but initially more traditional in its approach. “Peter, in his prime in the ‘60s, was without equal,” said John Mayall in “Man of the World,” a 2009 BBC documentary about Green. It was in the beginning, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and I thank you, Peter Green, for that. His legacy will live on forever in the history books of Rock n Roll. It was one of the reasons I was excited to join the band. When I first listened to all the Fleetwood Mac records, I was very taken with his guitar playing. I always hoped in my heart of hearts that that would happen. “My biggest regret is that I never got to share the stage with him. ![]() “I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Peter Green,” Nicks said in a statement. Fleetwood Mac member Stevie Nicks mourned his death.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |