Primary Wave Acquires Rights from Estate of Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green

Primary Wave Acquires Rights from Estate of Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green

Primary Wave has acquired the publishing rights of Fleetwood Mac founder and original guitarist Peter Green, the company announced on Monday, with Primary Wave acquiring Green’s interests in the songs he composed as well as the assets of Green’s Rattlesnake music publishing catalog.

Primary Wave declined to disclose financial details of the acquisition. The deal includes the early Fleetwood Mac hits Green penned including “Albatross,” “Black Magic Woman” and “Oh Well.”

Green co-founded Fleetwood Mac in the late ’60s alongside Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, starting the group as a blues rock band. The instrumental “Albatross,” which Green wrote himself, became the band’s biggest early hit, topping the charts in the U.K. “Black Magic Woman” meanwhile, became a hit for Santana and remains one of his biggest songs over five decades later. Green recorded three albums with the band, but he’d suffered from mental health issues (later being diagnosed with schizophrenia) and left in 1970. By the mid-70s, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined and launched the iteration of the band that reached international stardom.

This isn’t the first Fleetwood Mac deal Primary Wave has made; they bought a stake in Stevie Nicks’ catalog back in 2020. Outside of Primary Wave, Buckingham sold his catalog to Hipgnosis Songs, Fleetwood sold his recorded music rights to BMG and McVie’s estate sold her recorded music stake to HarbourView in 2023.

Green, who died in 2020 at age 73, is often cited as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, lauded for his distinct tone and inventive and virtuosic approach to the blues. His 1959 Gibson Les Paul is itself a legendary instrument among guitarists, known to have a unique tone because one of its pickups was placed in the guitar upside down. That guitar, known as “Greeny,” is owned by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, who’s been known to give replicas of the instrument to other guitarists.

“When I look at the definition of a musical genius, Peter Green ticks every box,” Primary Wave’s Robin Godfrey Cass said in a statement. “As a musician, songwriter, and founder of Fleetwood Mac, he is an icon.  It has been over 60 years ago since he began writing his body of legendary songs which are still in use every day.  I am ecstatic that the estate has given Primary Wave the reins to continue his amazing legacy.”