Peter Green (1946-2020)

I SPENT A considerable amount of time in the late Sixties lying on the floor of my girlfriend’s bedroom, listening to an album called A Hard Road by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. It featured an exciting newcomer to the British blues scene at the time — a guitarist named Peter Green, who had accomplished the Herculean feat of replacing Eric Clapton in Mayall’s band. By this point, May-all’s previous disc — Blues Breakers: John May-all with Eric Clapton, the so-called “Beano album” — had already become the stuff of legend. This was the era of “Clapton is God” graffiti.

But Green’s work with Mayall offered a different, and arguably deeper, dive into the mysterious, mystical thing that we call the blues. Green didn’t dazzle in the same way that Clapton did. Instead, he reached right inside your chest and wrenched your heart from its cavity. But to say, as some have, that Green favored emotional expression over technical virtuosity also sells