Peter Green, the legendary British blues guitar virtuoso who co-founded Fleetwood Mac in the 1960s, has died at 73. “It is with great sadness that the family of Peter Green announce his death this weekend, peacefully in his sleep. A further statement will be provided in the coming days,” the law firm Swan Turton revealed on Saturday morning.

Green, who was born Peter Greenbaum on October 29, 1946, in London, England, is considered to be one of the greatest guitarists of all time; as B.B. King once noted, Green “was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” Green picked up his first guitar at age 10 and was playing professionally by the time he turned 15.

He got his first big break in 1966, when he replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers; his one album with that band, “A Hard Road,” featured two of his own compositions, “The Same Way” and “The Supernatural.” A year later, Green left Bluesbreakers to form his own blues group with drummer Mick Fleetwood (whom he’d met in 1965 while playing in Peter B’s Looners), Jeremy Spencer, and John McVie. This early version of Fleetwood Mac, originally called Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, made its debut at the British Blues and Jazz festival in summer 1967, which led to a record deal.

The Green-led lineup of Fleetwood Mac released four albums between 1968 and 1969: “Fleetwood Mac” (which stayed on the British charts for 13 months), “Mr. Wonderful,” “English Rose,” and “Then Play On.” Green penned several Mac classics during this time, including “Albatross” (which was the band’s first No. 1 single), “Oh Well,” “Man of the World,” and “Black Magic Woman,” the latter of which was famously covered by Carlos Santana’s group Santana in 1970.

However, Green’s last single for Fleetwood Mac, “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” seemed like a cry for help; he had begun experimenting with LSD, and his behavior had grown increasingly erratic. Green later explained in a 1996 interview with Mojo (a magazine that ranked him at No. 3 on its list of the greatest guitar players of all time) was about money, as represented by the devil. Green’s final performance with Fleetwood Mac was on May 20, 1970, and later that year he released his fittingly titled solo album, “The End of the Game.” Green was officially out of the band for good by 1971.

On Saturday, luminaries of the rock community took to social media to pay tribute to Green.

(SD-Agencies)