THERE have been many rock'n'roll casualties over the years, all sad tales of individuals who, for one reason or another, just couldn't cope with the ancillary pressures that success, money, and fame bring along with them. Some rock stars commit suicide; some slide into the ignominious pit of obscurity; others place their heads briefly above the parapet to see what the outside world is like, only to retract them and return to their own private space.
The most tragic stories, perhaps, are those which concern the incandescent ones, the blindingly talented who burn brightly for several years, only to disappear from public view, their existence substantiated by memory, old recordings and occasionally - by the "what if" factor.
Peter Green is one such rock star who has received the "Where Are They Now?" treatment. Not any more, though. He has returned from what amounts to 20 years of hibernation. His future looks somewhat more appealing and reassuring than his past. And what a past! Ponder the following brief personal resume of his career, wonder at the abject tragedy of it all, and then rejoice that his story might not have such a disastrous ending after all.
The beginning of the end for the young Peter Green began in 1968 in New York. His band, Fleetwood Mac - by that time, the most popular British crossover blues band in Europe were on the cusp of American success. They had already had three hit singles in Britain (Black Magic Woman, Need Your Love So Bad, and Albatross), while in New York they recorded their fourth and imminent hit single, Man Of The World. Green was effectively the band leader, and indisputably the finest white blues lyricist and guitarist of the day.
The songs he wrote were singular calls for love and understanding in a cruel and uncomprehending world. It was a world that was to become even more complex, however. While in New York, the band tried their first taste of LSD, a nightmare trip that seemed to affect Green more than the other members.
On their return to England, noticeable changes occurred in Green: unusually for someone so successful, he wanted to give away considerable sums of money, something which the other band members instantly rejected; he became obsessed with religion, subsequently renouncing his Jewish faith in favour of an individualistic combination of Christianity and Buddhism. More importantly, he began to suffer mentally, eventually spiralling downwards into a waking nightmare which he was to experience intermittently throughout the remainder of the 1970s and for most of the 1980s.
Over the past few years he has, with the help of close friends, been back playing guitar. He's currently in a band called The Splinter Group, which is comprised of supportive musicians who allow Green the space to do whatever he wants to. Recording an album is on the cards, and the overall mood is a positive one.
I suppose I have been away for quite a while, but not as long as the public "think," says Peter Green, who played at the Harvest Time Blues Festival in Monaghan last Sunday.
VIRTUALLY unrecognisable from his days in Fleetwood Mac, the slimness of the young Peter Green has been replaced by a firm portliness and demeanour not unlike that of a Dickens character. Still under medication, Green occasionally pauses for thought when asked a particular question, his eyes wandering, requiring a prompt for a response. It seems from talking to him that the periods of time in mental hospitals and sessions of Electro Convulsive Therapy have taken their toll, but he's stable enough to make jokes at his own expense, and to pursue a topic of conversation.
"It's super to be playing in a band format again. With some of the songs, I can really concentrate on playing the guitar, and some mouth organ. On other songs I play lead guitar all the way through which is nice. Before, I was heavily featured - the spotlight fell on me. Here, it's nothing like that. It's a lovely feeling."
Did he ever feel pressure from being a front man?
"Pressure from whom? The audience? No, not really. It wasn't like that."
Were there times in the past 15 to 20 years when he thought he wouldn't play guitar again? "Occasionally. There were times when I didn't want to, other times when I would have loved to play. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a personal creative process going on at the moment. No songs. I'm not really a writer, to tell you the truth. I used to go to a day centre in Lee on Solent, and a bloke there gave me a harmonica. I took it home, and I've practised on that often. I've no need to worry about songwriting. No pressures any more, just personal pleasure."
DOES he regret the drug abuse of the late 1960s and early 1970s? "Drug abuse? What's, that, then?" Green laughs at this, and continues, "drug abuse is when you take drugs and don't get any pleasure from it, when nothing happens. I remember those days quite clearly. We were all just passing time back then. Not waiting for anything. Everything was mediocre. If it hadn't been for the drugs, I'm sure I'd have floated on to something else. I remember I took LSD in a commune had a wonderful time.
"Then the mental hospitals came along. That was the drugs, wasn't it? I'm still a bit brainless through all that. My mind felt perfect before I went into those places, but somewhere along the way something happened. My brain feels as if there's a white mesh around it." He laughs. "That's the main reason why I didn't pick up a guitar for years.
What does he think might have happened if he hadn't taken LSD? "I believed in children, marriage, fertility, things like that," he says in a whisper. "I had a lot of worries about having children, finding a wife, all of that. Unfortunately, I'll never have the pleasure to know how my life would have turned out.
"I'd like to meet the person who gave me my first trip, that's for sure. That said, I've done quite well out of it. I've remembered a lot of things that I discovered all those years ago.
