JOLLY GREEN GIANT

British Blues legend Peter Green looks back at the highs and lows of a careeer that spans nearly 50 years. Interview by Martin Celmins

It is summer 2008 and Peter Green is revisiting 1964/65, which was the time when he first heard Eric Clapton’s ground-breaking interpretation of Chicago electric blues, initially as featured guitarist in the Yardbirds and then - aged just 20 - in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Famously, Eric’s other-worldly talent soon secured him the nickname ‘God’.

Only a year or so later in 1966 it was Green’s unenviable task to replace a Cream-bound Clapton in the Bluesbreakers – and not be seen as a mere mortal playing in God’s shadow. Today he is quick to dispel certain myths that still surround this changing of American blues guardians. For instance, when he first heard Eric’s playing he did not blithely reckon he could go on to be as good a player: “When I was asked to join, John Mayall gave me the Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton album and told me to learn Eric’s parts because those were the songs we would be playing at gigs. But there were only a few phrases that I could work out and copy… many of the things Eric could play were just too miraculous!”

Peter is now in his early sixties, and yet when he talks about music – and blues in particular – he does so with the engaging enthusiasm of a teenager who is clearly still …

by Martin Celmins
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