Peter Green Birthplace — Bethnal Green, London

Peter Green — Peter Allen Greenbaum — was born on October 29, 1946, in Bethnal Green, east London, the son of a Jewish butcher, and became one of the most gifted and tragic figures in British rock. He replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1966, a position that required extraordinary nerve, and within months had established himself as Clapton's equal — B.B. King famously said Green was the only white man who could make him sweat. He founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 and led the band through their early blues phase — 'Black Magic Woman,' 'Albatross,' 'Oh Well,' 'Man of the World,' 'The Green Manalishi' — before a psychotic break ended his career at its height.

Green's mental collapse, precipitated by a bad LSD experience in Munich in 1970 and the onset of what was later diagnosed as schizophrenia, produced one of rock's most devastating what-ifs. He gave away his royalties, let his guitar playing deteriorate, and spent years in and out of psychiatric institutions. A late-career revival in the 1990s produced some fine recordings, and he played occasionally with the Peter Green Splinter Group before his death in July 2020. The tone of his guitar playing — warm, slightly imprecise, deeply human — has never been replicated.

Bethnal Green is in the East End of London, now heavily gentrified. There is no formal Green landmark in the area. His Jewish East End background — the same community that produced many significant British entertainers — is the context for his early life. He is buried in north London.