Stevie Nicks paid tribute to Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green Saturday following the guitar great’s death at the age of 73.
Although Nicks didn’t join Fleetwood Mac until five years after Green’s departure, the singer admitted that the group’s Green-era music was one of the reasons she decided to join Fleetwood Mac. In 1998, both Green and Nicks were among the eight Fleetwood Mac members inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“I am sorry to hear about the passing of Peter Green. My biggest regret is that I never got to share the stage with him. I always hoped in my heart of hearts that that would happen,” Nicks wrote on Twitter.
“When I first listened to all the Fleetwood Mac records, I was very taken with his guitar playing. It was one of the reasons I was excited to join the band.”
— Stevie Nicks (@StevieNicks) July 26, 2020
Green died Saturday “peacefully in his sleep,” his family announced. The guitarist, a veteran of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, led Fleetwood Mac for the band’s first three studio albums as well as their hit UK singles “Albatross” and “Man of the Hour.”
Nicks continued, “His legacy will live on forever in the history books of Rock n Roll. It was in the beginning, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and I thank you, Peter Green, for that. You changed our lives.”
Mick Fleetwood, who co-founded Fleetwood Mac with Green in 1967, said in a statement Saturday, “Peter was the man who started the band Fleetwood Mac along with myself, John McVie, and Jeremy Spencer. No one has ever stepped into the ranks of Fleetwood Mac without a reverence for Peter Green and his talent, and to the fact that music should shine bright and always be delivered with uncompromising passion!”
