Peter Green biography

"He's the only guitar player to make me sweat" .......B.B. King

On October 29 1946, Peter Allen Greenbaum was born in Bethnal Green, East London., the youngest of four children from Joe and Ann Greenbaum. Little did anyone know at the time, but this young lad who started his working life as an apprentice butcher would become known to music fans around the world as arguably the greatest blues player the world has ever known; Peter Green.The Greenbaum's had a musical pedigree. Peters grandfather, Mark Rachman was a violinist. His grandfather Greenbaum was a restless travelling man - the perfect combination for a bluesman - the restless wandering musician. 

Young Peter's interest in guitar playing was sparked by watching his brother Michael play. Michael taught Peter a few chords, and he was off and running. The first melody Peter learned to play (by ear) was the theme from a TV show of the day called "Gun Law". By the age of eleven, Peter was teaching himself. Peter's earliest influence as a young guitarist was, like most British kids at the time, Hank Marvin of The Shadows. However, hot on Hank's heels were blues giants like Muddy Waters and BB King. By age 15, young Peter Greenbaum was going by the name Peter Green. 

The Greenbaum family were always supportive of Peter's music (the opposite to most families of that era). Often, a pop song would come on the radio and Pete's father would say

"Thats a terrible guitar solo... Hey Pete, you can do much better than that can't you?"

Although Peter learned to play guitar, he initially gravitated to playing bass. He remembers the first time he saw Eric Clapton play (at the Crawdaddy Club with "The Yardbirds") - Peter was more interested in what their bassist Paul Samwell-Smith was doing. He eventually started to look to Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones as his biggest bass playing influence. 

Peter's first band was called "Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes" (or when Peter first joined "The ken Cats" )whose repertoire was mainly whatever was in the charts, as well as some old rock 'n roll stuff. On leaving, Peter joined The Muskrats, whose music was probably more to his liking, being predominantly R&B. From there, he joined yet another band called The Tridents, before getting his first chance of recognition with Peter B's Looners (Peter B. being Pete Bardens). Once in the Looner's, the seeds of the future were sown as Peter became friendly with the bands giant drummer Mick Fleetwood.

Peter recorded for the first time in his career with the Looner's, cutting the single "If You Wanna Stay Happy / Jodrell Blues". "If you wanna stay happy" was a cover of an old Jimmy Soul classic.

After three months, Peter had had enough and quit - Mick followed him very quickly. The big time was just around the corner.

It was after seeing a Bluesbreaker gig, with Clapton on a Les Paul, that Peter first bought the guitar most closely associated with him

I stumbled across one when I was looking for something more powerful than my Harmony Meteor. I went into Selmer's in Charing Cross Road and tried one. It was only £110 and it sounded lovely and the colour was really good. But the neck was like a tree trunk - like the tree trunk was spliced down the middle and half of it was used for your guitar neck! It was very different from Eric's, which was slim: very fast action. I've never seen another guitar with such an old-fashioned neck. But I couldn't consider a Telecaster for some reason and I didn't want a Stratocaster.

Around this time Eric Clapton left the Bluesbreakers (for a short time, leaving again later). Mayall had hired another guitarist. Mayall recalls, "Eric's replacement wasn't nearly as good and this cockney kid-- Peter Green-- kept coming down to all the gigs and saying, 'Hey, what are you doing with him; I'm much better than he is. Why he's no good at all!'...he got really nasty about it, so finally I let him sit in."Peter did about three gigs with the band before Clapton returned.

One of the biggest stories on the music scene at the time was Eric Clapton's shock departure from John Mayall's Buesbreakers. Peter was instantly in a strong position to fill his shoes as he had previously filled in when Clapton had gone a short sabbatical. Peter was a huge Clapton fan, and knew his repertoire inside out. very quickly, Mayall realised that Peter was the perfect replacement and hired him. Peter came into a very strong lineup - the Bluesbreakers at that time consisting of Aynsley Dunbar on drums, John McVie on bass, and Mayall himself.

Very quickly, the band were at Decca Studio's in London, faced with the daunting task of cutting the follow-up to the famed "Beano" album featuring Eric Clapton. Very quickly, Peter established himself as Eric's contemporary (despite the open hostility of fans shouting for Clapton at gigs) - but by playing his own way. This is what made the follow up album "A Hard Road" such a pioneering record. Two tracks on the album were Green originals "The Supernatural" (which was to be released as a single, and was, according to legend, the song which made a musician out of Carlos Santana), and "The Same Way".

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