There was a time, in my 'knowing very little about popular music' period of late 1969 that Peter Green was my favourite guitarist. He was the leader of Fleetwood Mac, named after his drummer and bassist - there's modesty for you. During 1969, they had quite a few hit records, where the music was certainly not pop but also not blues.
"Albatross" is probably the most well known and also the least typical; there was my favourite "Man of the world", along with "Oh well" and "Green manalishi". Green seemed to be making his own furrow with songs that stand up well 50 years on. I wrote about these songs and their effect on me many years ago.
But then something happened; Green became an LSD casualty and dropped out of the music scene. Although he did make a few records after leaving his own band, nothing much came of them. He certainly dropped off my radar, and I adopted other favourite guitarists: at first Mick Abrahams and then Richard Thompson.
He died a few days ago, apparently "peacefully in his sleep". May he continue to sleep peacefully.
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