In 1966, an unknown guitarist/songwriter was recruited to replace none other than Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.  With big shoes to fill, on John Mayall’s following album The Hard Way, Peter Green demonstrated that he could indeed fill the position left by Clapton and before long “was dubbed the Green God, a reference to the Clapton is God graffiti that appeared in London in 1966” (Ellis, 2000, p.87). 

 

However, in 1967, echoing the move Clapton made a year earlier, Green left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and according to Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green’s “initial plans didn’t involve forming a new band, but his agency persuaded him” (Lewry, 1998, p.16).  The result was the formation of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, later to be named just Fleetwood Mac.  Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac debuted at the British Jazz and Blues Festival in August of 1967, and shortly after received a recording contract (Romanowski & Warren, 1995).  The band’s “debut album stayed near the top of the British charts for 13 months” (Romanowski & Warren, 1995, p.336) and with a series of hits such as Albatross, Drifting and Black Magic Woman, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac found themselves “at the forefront of the British Blues movement of the late sixties” (Lewry, 1998, p.12).  Green was considered by many to be the best of Britain’s blues guitarists and his peers immediately expressed their admiration and respect for his abilities.  Carlos Santana has referred to Green’s sound as “a holy grail of tone” and B.B. King has stated, “He (Green) has the sweetest tone I ever heard. He’s the only one who gave me the cold sweats” (Ellis, 2000, p.87). 

 

As Fleetwood Mac entered into the 1970’s, it was clear that Peter Green was not adjusting well to the pressures and lifestyle that accompanied his fame.  Mick Fleetwood recalls, “problems had started back in 1969 when Green had the idea that the band should give away all their money” (Lewry, 1998, p.47).  Green’s view on the accumulation of wealth is evident in the lyrics in The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown), a Green original that highlights the negative consciences of greed and money (Tobler, 1993, p.150).  Although the band refused to give away their wealth, Green began to give away his guitars and much of his money (Hughes, 1997).  Eventually, Peter Green quit Fleetwood Mac and, ultimately, as the seventies progressed, he retired from music altogether. 

 

Bob Brunning, the original Fleetwood Mac bassist, recalls,

 

“I was very worried about Peter around that time.  He and I had worked together on Dave Kelly’s 1970 solo album on Mercury, and I invited him round to my house to listen to it.  But, he refused to listen to the record, saying he had no interest in music and suggested we go to a pub instead.  This was from a man who had frowned upon me drinking more than one pint during evening rehearsals!  This was not the Peter I knew”  (Lewry, 1998, p.48).

 

Newspaper reports on Green’s disappearance from music have frequently made mention of an alleged incident where Green “attacked his accountant with an air rifle” as he was “attempting to deliver a royalty cheese for $30,000” that Green refused to accept (Hughes,1997, p.22).  Likewise, the story of Green growing his fingernails excessively long in order to prevent himself from playing guitar has reached legendary status among his fans (Hughes, 1997).

 

Peter Green “eventually suffered a series of mental breakdowns that saw him in and out of psychiatric hospitals for a number of years” and “when released, he lived alone, unable to look after himself and to monitor his intake of medication” (Hughes, 1997, p.22).  In a November 2000 interview, Green stated that after he gave away his money and sold off his equipment he was committed to a “mental house” (Ellis, 2000, p.96).  Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Green underwent a series of psychiatric drug treatments during his confinement in psychiatric hospitals.  Both the Schizophrenia webpage and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights webpage have quoted Peter Green as saying, “They gave me tranquilizers, and I didn’t really know much about it. It was a struggle to stay awake. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t feel alive”.

 

Apparently, it wasn’t just the pressures of being famous that caused Peter Green to suffer a mental breakdown.  Evidently, as Green admits, drug abuse played a significant role in his mental illness.  In a 1997 interview, when asked if he remembered how bad it was when he was ill, Green responded, “No, I don’t remember at all, I was just...destroyed.  I think it was someone doing it to me-I’ll never accept that it was just me.  I’ve always known that someone made it happen to me, someone mucking about with me.  I took LSD and had a hard time ...getting back. I didn’t want to get back, but I had to get back” (Hughes, 1997, p.27). 

 

Excessive usage of LSD, as Peter Green has reflected, resulted in “too many bad acid trips” during his rise to fame (p.21).  Green recalls that “in those early days of LSD and other mind altering drugs, there was a series of tests on experimental drugs being conducted by the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Center” which anyone could take part in, and ultimately become guinea pigs, to test the effects of various drugs (Riordam & Prochnicky, 1991, p.62).  Generally speaking, the consensus was that such drugs were not harmful which of course, helped foster a greater social acceptance and usage of LSD.

 

In the 1960’s,

 

“It was an easy time to get drugs, LSD was not yet illegal and the general public and most authorities were not hip to grass yet.  It was a time for testing limits anyway and no one really thought you could get hurt by it.  The feeling was that if you ingested a lot of various exotic drugs the worst that might happen is that they would make you sick and throw up.  To many, that little bit of inconvenience was well worth the risk.  That is, until a few years later, when people started dying left and right from drug overdoses or from doing insane things during bad acid trips” (p.63).

 

In hindsight, it appears that the context of the sixties drug culture, combined with the pressures of fame, ultimately lead to Peter Green’s withdrawal from music and mental breakdown.  As Fleetwood Mac bassist, John McVie commented, “He just didn’t want to be a guitar star anymore...all the pressures, possibly coupled with a degree of acid loss, seemed to put him off the rock scene” (Lewry, 1998, p.48).

 

Now, after nearly 25 years out of the public eye Peter Green is now recording and touring again.  When asked what made him decide to play again, Peter Green had this to say:

 

“I wasn’t going to bother playing the guitar again, but Nigel [Watson] came along, and he was doing various things, playing guitar, making some money here and there. So he got me back into practicing, and just playing along to see if I still enjoyed it. I did go through a time when I didn’t touch a guitar and I had really long fingernails.  I was still listening to music, but I wasn’t playing at all. So Nigel comes around and says, “I’ve got two guitars here-why don’t you play a bit?”. And I said, “Nah, I don’t play anymore”.  But he kept on saying, “Come on, come on, help me out a little bit” and I thought about it, and said, “Well, I’ll have a go for you, Nige,” and that was it. I was off and playing again.”

           

As a result of Watson’s encouragement, Peter Green became a member of The Splinter Group, and though times have changed for Peter Green, he has stated, “I feel better all the time, and I’m enjoying myself a lot now” (Hughes, 1997, p.27). 

 

Since joining The Splinter Group, Peter Green and his band mates have released the self titled Splinter Group album, The Robert Johnson Songbook, Destiny Road, Hotfoot Powder, Live In Soho, Time Traders, The Best Of Peter Green Splinter Group and in 2004, a live DVD entitled An Evening with Peter Green Splinter Group.

 

                                            -by Dale Boyle -

 
 
 
References:

 

Ellis, Andy. (2000, November). Guitar Player: Jumping at Shadows: Peter Green Rediscovers The Guitar, Recalls The Past, and Finds Strength in The Blues. P, 86-98.

 

Hughes, Andy. (1997, March). Guitar Shop: Albatross On My Back: The Guitar Shop Interview with Fleetwood Mac’s Lost Legend, Peter Green. P, 20-28.

 

Lewry, Peter. (1998). Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Recording Sessions 1967-1997. Sterling Publisher Co, Inc. New York.

 

Riordan, James & Prochnicky, Jerry. (1991). Break On Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison. New York: William Morrow & Company.

 

Romanowski, Patricia & Warren, Holly. (1995). The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock n’Roll. Rolling Stone Press. New York.

 

Tobler, John. (1993). This Day in Rock: Day by Day Record of Rock’s Biggest News Stories. Great Britian:Carlton Books