Ahead of his time and massively influential, the
Singer, songwriter and guitarist was interested in expressing emotion in the songs, rather than showing off how fast he could play
Peter Green, who has died at the age of 73, was one of the great heroes, and great casualties, of the
British blues scene, back in its glory days in the late 1960s. Given the seemingly impossible task of taking over from Eric Clapton for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, once the guitar hero widely known simply as God had quit to form Cream, Green not only won over Clapton’s followers but dared to move into new directions as a songwriter, as he showed with his eerie instrumental The Supernatural. Even more audacious was his decision to leave Mayall in 1967 to form his own band, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, and steal Mayall’s rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie, after whom his new band was named.