Peter Green and his peers....
 

With the famous B.B. King quote aside (and Carlos Santana), I'm wondering if anyone has read quotes from other guitar players of Green's generation (Clapton, Bloomfield, Beck, Page, Townshend, Gilmour, Hendrix, Garcia, Allman, Walsh, Blackmore, etc.) talk about Peter Green. I haven't found much myself so I'm asking for some help. Thanks.

A good question, I haven't found much myself either....

/z

It's a rare month in Guitar Player magazine that there's not SOME mention of Peter Green by somebody.

As a Hendrix fan, well fanatic, I know there's no interview where he mentions Peter. But according to Mick Fleetwood he was a huge admirer.

Clapton mentions his first impressions of Peter briefly in his autobiography:
"I got the impression he was a strong, confident person who knew exactly what he wanted, but who played his cards close to his chest. Most importantly, he was a phenomenal player, with a great tone." But that's all.

you might try "Strange Brew"
 

In that 2007 book by Christopher Hjort there are several quotes from a few of his contemporaries. a little instant gratification

doodyhead

Thanks! I ordered that book "Strange Brew" a week ago and it's arriving by mail anyday now.

As a huge fan of both Green and Gilmour I have been interested to find any comments made by either about other guitar players. The only one I have found regarding these two was Gilmour's response to an interviewer's suggestion that the opening guitar part on Shine On You Crazy Diamond sounds like Peter Green:
Gilmour - "It sounds like Peter Green? Thank you (laughs). We try!"
He goes on to describe the songs basis in the blues. Only a brief comment but one that I like to think displays Gilmour's appreciation of Green's playing in his usual reserved and dry manner.
The qoute is taken from Bruno MacDonald's 'Pink Floyd - Through the eyes of...'

As "Strange Brew" has been mentioned, I thought I'd just say I did a review of this excellent book for Amazon some time ago. It's available at

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Brew...0299111&sr=1-1

Wow - didn't know you wrote that review. Very well done! :thumbsup:

I'm very pleased...
 

After a week of reading the book, I'm very glad I made the purchase. I mainly focused on Green's career, and the Derek and the Dominoes era of Clapton. A friend told me after seeing pictures of Duane Allman in his bio "Skydog" he didn't look long for this planet motorcyle crash or not. It was great that Green was able to jam with the Allmans in New Orleans after he left FM. I have that famous Grateful Dead show 2-11-70, and there are too many musicians on stage to enjoy the performance.

This book shows that Green's decent into oblivion was gradual, and not based on one incident in Munich. What I can't understand is how this driven guitar player, who forced himself into John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, becomes this broken person in four years. I personally know of one acid casualty (he's still alive, but not the same), he played bass in a band I was in during high school. This person had a quiet and shy personality, and that wasn't Peter Green pre-drugs. I figured those were the types of people that shouldn't have used the drug. Listening to the Blue Horizon box set, it doesn't take long to hear who's running the show. With the studio false starts and outtakes, producer Mike Vernon had his hands full dealing with Green.
Green must've used LSD on a level that a lot of us couldn't comprehend.

Many thanks, Sharksfan. Incidentally, I believe Christopher Hjort is working on an update of the book -- it'll be interesting to see what new material he comes up with.

By all accounts he didn't - lots of musicians took much more (John Lennon etc) and escaped relatively unharmed. But latent schizophrenia can be triggered by lsd according to some reports - he should obviously never have taken the drug at all.

The Blues is Brewing....
 

Yes, it is a fantastic piece of work Christopher Hjort has created. Unfortunately I don't know how to "multi quote" so: great comments from MDLW, slipkid and a very good review from you Derek Slade. I am looking forward to the up-date on Hjorts book, too.

About peers:

This brief appreciative comment from Dave Gilmour seems to be a rare occurance. Maybe peers are a bit mean when it comes to appreciation of one another because of the competition? Maybe the fate of Peter Green is a kind of collective trauma with a lot of british musicians from the sixtees because they were all in the same boat at the time: overworked, doing a lot of drugs and most of them escaped insanity? I don't know....Maybe I am a bit far out on this one :nod:

It made me think about this comment about playing with Peter Green from Hjorts book - not from a peer - but from a fellow musician - bassplayer Bruce Thomas who played with Peter Bardens and later in Elvis Costellos band The Attractions. In 1994 he recalls a night (saturday the 16th of August 1969) when Green joined Peter Bardens band on stage at The Marquee: "The guitar playing that I was listening to was no longer a matter of notes, it was pure emotion. It was a matter of whether I could possibly smile any wider or contain any more excitement and joy. I never wanted it to end - and, for a while, it didn't." (....) "If I were forced to pick one musical highpoint from my entire life, then this is it."" (Hjort, p.256)

Ms Moose

When he was playing with Cream, Eric Clapton was asked who his favourite contemporary guitarplayers was.
He replied "Jeff Beck, Peter Green and George Harrison".

In another interview (about 1968) he also mentioned Jeremy Spencer.