June 15: Peter Green’s Blues

British guitarist Peter Green (Greenbaum) quit John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, in which he had replaced Eric Clapton, on this date in 1967. Soon after, Green formed Fleetwood Mac, one of rock’s most enduring bands -- but he left the band in 1970 after deciding that he wanted them to give away all of their money. (His mates did not agree.) Green was an acclaimed blues guitarist (with “a mournful vocal style,” says critic Michael Jefferson, “developed by listening to Jewish cantors’), but his career was derailed in the 1970s and ’80s by drug-induced mental illness. Ranked 38th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Among his best-known songs is “Black Magic Woman,” which Santana turned into a hit. To see him soloing during a Fleetwood Mac concert, click here. “I took one too many LSD trips. And that puts me in the Care and Attention category.” —Peter Green Watch a 54-minute documentary on Peter Green’s early years with Fleetwood Mac: