FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE B5
BY EMILY DAVIESDupont Circle’s beloved
Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe
will stay in its current location
for at least three more years,
owner Steve Salis said Thursday,
allaying the wave of grief and
nostalgia that swept through the
neighborhood after he had earli-
er announced his intent to move
the store.
“We are not imminently leav-
ing tomorrow,” he said. “We will
most likely be there for six years,
and just to be clear, that is when
our lease ends. But we will leave
no sooner than three years.”
Despite reports in May that he
intended to move the storefront,
Salis said he never planned to
leave the current location this
year.
But his short-term vision for
the store has changed, thanks in
part to the o utpouring of support
for Kramerbooks after fears that
it would soon disappear from
Dupont. Over the past three
months, Salis said, he has dou-
bled d own on his commitment t o
the Dupont Circle location by
launching initiatives aimed at
refurbishing and expanding the
shop.
“It really j ust hit me like wow,”
Salis said of the support he
received and the resonance the
shop has across the world.
“I got to a place where I said,
‘We need to do something be-
cause when people come back, I
want them to feel a sense of
excitement and rejuvenation.’ ”
His decision to proceed with
renovations to the 4 4-year-old
bookshop is also motivated by
updates to a long-drawn-out le-
gal battle and sputtering busi-
ness amid the pandemic. For
years, Salis had been involved in
a dispute with one of his three
landlords, who blocked renova-
tions he requested as part
of a $3 million project to trans-
form the shop into “experiential
retail.” Salis and the landlord,
Pete Hiotis with Cadence Man-
agement, recently settled the dis-
pute a nd established parametersfor renovation.
Salis said that a greement, cou-
pled with sustained losses in
business throughout the pan-
demic, inspired him to take on
more modest renovations than
he originally envisioned. But he
still plans to eventually move
from the location, in part over
disagreements with his landlord,
but also because of the high rent
and the state of business in the
area pre-pandemic.
Hiotis declined to comment
on the lawsuit b ut said he is “very
happy to have Kramerbooks as a
tenant and hope[s] to continue
our relationship for a long time.”
Renovations are now under-
way at the shop’s longtime loca-
tion, which will rebrand the res-
taurant and bar a nd add a break-
fast bar, inspired by what had
been a Kramer’s staple in the
early 1980 s. A new chef, Vincent
Griffith, will update the menu to
provide modern American food
with slight French influences,
and the bar’s beverage manager
will overhaul all drinks. The
price point of the restaurant and
bar, renamed “All Day by Kram-
ers,” will stay the same, Salis
said.Later this year, Salis plans to
introduce a flower and plant
shop in the northern building
and a barbershop to fill an up-
stairs space previously used for
private events.
While the historic Kramer-
books location is moving toward
a modern and digital model, it is
far from achieving Salis’s long-
term vision for the brand. With
one eye focused on updating his
current storefront, he is also
engaging in serious conversa-
tions about expanding Kramer-
books to other locations across
the District.
“We are talking to people and
schematically looking at places
with the intention of doing
something,” he said, adding that
he would make sure to maintain
the “quirky” spirit of the store in
all renovations and potential
moves.
Laura Wyllie, 58, sat outside
Kramerbooks on Thursday with
french fries and a pint of beer,
reading about German painter
Albrecht Dürer.
“This is one of the few places
where you can sit down by your-
self and read a book and look
normal,” she said, closing herhardcover book and glancing
around the c ement o utdoor area,
where the new renovation would
soon bring greenery.
Wyllie was so devastated
when she heard that Kramer-
books was moving that she d rove
in from Alexandria the next day
to see for herself whether it was
true.
“I tried not to panic,” she said.
“But I h ave been coming here for
decades and I know there isnowhere else like it.”
Joy filled her face when Wyllie
learned Thursday that the shop
would stay at that location for at
least a few years longer. As she
flipped open her book, she con-
sidered the renovations she no-
ticed underway inside.
“Updating is always good, but
this is such a classic place,” she
said. “We don’t need to do too
much.”
[email protected]THE DISTRICT
Kramerbooks will stay in Dupont at least 3 years
SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
New glass and murals at Kramerbooks & Afterwords in Dupont
Circle, which is rebranding its restaurant and bar.Renovations, restaurant
updates begin d espite
reports of p lanned moveobituaries
BY RACHEL CHASONPrince George’s County i s inves-
tigating the circumstances sur-
rounding the death of Chantee
Mack, who was one of more than
20 employees in the county Health
Department w ho tested positive
for t he novel c oronavirus.
Union officials say that as coro-
navirus began its rapid spread in
Prince George’s, leaders in the
Health Department did not allow
Mack and other employees to
work from home and failed to
provide them with personal pro-
tective equipment or implement
social distancing.
A fter news reports on the alle-
gations last week, Prince George’s
County Executive Angela Also-
brooks (D) said Thursday that the
county is conducting an investiga-
tion into Mack’s death, which she
called “the w orst-case s cenario.”
“I want to know what hap-
pened,” Alsobrooks said at a news
conference w ith H ealth Officer Er-
nest L. Carter. “I know Dr. Carter
wants to make sure that there is
nothing different we should be
doing right now to make sure we
are protecting the h ealth a nd safe-
ty not only of Prince Georgians,
but those who are working on the
front lines.”
Carter said the H ealth Depart-
ment was focused on saving lives,
noting that Prince George’s has
long led t he state in the number of
infections. The number of new
cases i n the c ounty, a nd a cross the
region, is again ticking upward
after w eeks o f decline.
“We did t he work we had to do,”
he said of early actions taken by
the Health Department i n March,
when the first employee tested
positive for the coronavirus. He
said the department followed
guidance from the U. S. Centers f or
Disease C ontrol a nd Prevention.
Both Carter and Alsobrooks
noted that what officials know
about the virus and how it spreads
has dramatically changed since
March. Alsobrooks said plans for
county employees to return to
work in phases have been rolled
back because of the danger the
virus poses. They w ill i nstead c on-
tinue to telework, she said.
Mack, 44, who worked in the
clinic for sexually transmitted dis-
eases, twice asked to work from
home, a ccording to her family and
union representatives.
Union officials said Mack’s re-
quests were supported by her im-
mediate supervisor but were de-
nied by Diane Young, an associate
director with the family health
services division. Young has not
responded to requests for com-
ment.
Mack, who lived in Laurel,
started feeling sick in April and
was a dmitted to the h ospital April
14 after she started struggling to
breathe, said her older brother,
Aric Mack. She died May 1 1.
Her younger brother, Roland
Mack, said Thursday that he had
heard from her co-workers that
there might be an investigation
but still has not heard directly
from Alsobrooks or leaders at the
Health D epartment.
Alsobrooks’s spokesman, John
Erzen, said the investigation
should be completed within a few
weeks.
[email protected]
MARYLAND
Pr. George’s
investigates
covid death of
h ealth worker
BY MATT SCHUDELPeter Green, who was a founder
of the British band Fleetwood Mac
and was considered one of the
greatest guitarists of his era before
becoming a tragic casualty of the
rock world, beset by drug prob-
lems and mental illness, has died
at a ge 7 3.
Swan Turton, a British law firm
representing his family, an-
nounced the death in a statement.
Further information, including
the exact date, place and cause of
death, w as not released.
In the United States, Mr. Green
was best known as the c omposer o f
“Black Magic Woman,” which he
first performed two years before it
became an international hit for
Carlos Santana. In his native Eng-
land, he was revered as perhaps
the finest rock guitarist of his gen-
eration, ranked on the same level
as Eric C lapton and Led Zeppelin’s
Jimmy Page.
Mr. Green was a charismatic
figure at the forefront of a fast-
moving rock-and-roll revolution,
as the music evolved in the late
1960 s from its blues-based origins
to a more ornate and theatrical
style, with overtones of spiritual
striving.
He replaced Clapton in one of
the seminal British groups of the
time, John Mayall’s B luesbreakers,
and in 1967 was a co-founder of
Fleetwood Mac. Mr. Green named
the band for two of its members —
drummer Mick Fleetwood and
bassist John McVie — but at the
beginning, he was its undisputed
leader and creative dynamo. The
British music press dubbed him
the “Green god.”
“Peter could have been the ste-
reotypical superstar guitar player
and control freak,” Fleetwood told
the Irish Times n ewspaper in 20 17.
“But that wasn’t his style. He
named the band after the bass
player and drummer... the reason
there’s a Fleetwood Mac at all is
because of him.”
Rolling Stone magazine named
Mr. Green one of the top 100 guitar-
ists in rock history. One of his idols,
Delta blues master B.B. King, report-
edly said Mr. Green had “the sweet-
est tone I ever heard. He w as the only
one who gave me the cold sweats.”
Mr. Green’s early leadership of
Fleetwood Mac was so powerful
that, when the group released its
first album in 1968 , the record
label billed it as “Peter Green’s
Fleetwood Mac.” In addition to
classic blues tunes by Robert John-
son and Elmore James, the album
contained five songs by Mr. Green
and three by its second guitarist,
Jeremy Spencer. (A third guitarist,
Danny Kirwan, later joined the
group.)
Two other albums, “Mr. Won-
derful” and “Then Play On,” fol-
lowed in 1968 and 1969, respec-
tively, both featuring Mr. Green’s
compositions, singing and guitar
wizardry. Music polls in Britain
rated Fleetwood Mac ahead of the
Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Some of Mr. Green’s most daz-
zling work, however, could not be
heard on the band’s first albums.
“Black Magic Woman” was re-
leased in 1968 as a 45-rpm single
and appeared on a 1969 compila-
tion album before becoming a hit
for Santana in 1970.
Mr. Green’s l yrical instrumental
ballad “Albatross,” also from 1968,became a No. 1 hit in the United
Kingdom on the strength of his
sublimely controlled touch on his
Les Paul guitar. The 1969 single
“Oh Well,” which reached No. 2 in
Britain, opened with Mr. Green’s
snarling electric guitar riff and his
unforgettable opening line:
Can’t help about the shape I’m in
I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty and my
legs are thin
But don’t ask me what I think of
you
I might not give the answer that
you want me to.
After rocking out for more than
two minutes, the band dramatical-
ly shifted to an elegant, cinematic
mode in the second half of the
song, with Mr. Green playing analmost mournful extended s olo on
an acoustic Spanish-style guitar,
with echoes o f Andres Segovia.
His final major contribution to
the Fleetwood Mac canon came in
1970, with “The Green Manalishi
(With The Two-Prong Crown),” a
song about the evils of money that
contained menacing lyrics — “The
night is so black that the darkness
cooks” — and even more menacing
guitar lines.
During his time w ith Fleetwood
Mac, Mr. Green grew more eccen-
tric in his manner a nd dress, some-
times performing in robes, with a
large cross around his neck. His
experiments with hallucinogenic
drugs came to a head during a
European tour in March 197 0,when the band arrived in Munich.
Mr. Green w as met at t he airport
by a mysterious couple — a young
woman in wire-rim glasses and a
man wearing a cape. He ended up
spending several days with the
couple, apparently taking LSD at a
castle outside Munich. When oth-
er band members tried to retrieve
Mr. Green from what they de-
scribed as a cult, they found him
playing guitar in a frenzied fash-
ion.
Even before then, his songs
were becoming more apocalyptic,
and he had implored his band-
mates to give away their money
and other material possessions.
Fleetwood and McVie persuaded
Mr. Green to rejoin the band, but
he left a fter only two months.
“To this day,” Fleetwood said in
1996, “John [McVie] and I always
say that was it. Peter Green was
never the same after that.” Kirwan,
Mr. Green’s fellow guitarist in the
band, also took hallucinogens at
the German castle, and his behav-
ior soon became so erratic that he
was forced out of the group.
Mr. Green briefly played with
Fleetwood Mac in 197 1, but refused
to sing, then quit the band for
good. He gave away his royalties,
sold his guitars and began staying
with friends and on doorsteps.
During the 1970 s, he worked at a
filling station, as a hospital atten-
dant and as a gravedigger. In 1977,
after he was arrested for threaten-
ing his accountant with a shotgun,
Mr. Green was treated at a psychi-
atric hospital.
Meanwhile, he made a few solo
records that went nowhere. In the
late 1970 s, Fleetwood arranged a
record deal for Mr. Green that
would have earned him nearly
$1 million for a s eries o f albums. A t
the last minute, Mr. Green refused
to sign t he contract.
He vanished into silence and
continued treatment for mental
illness. He had a short-lived mar-
riage in the 1970 s, then later lived
with members of his family. His
fingernails grew so long that he
could not finger the chords on a
guitar.
By 1995, Mr. Green was staying
in the English c ountryside with oldfriends, including musician Nigel
Watson. When Watson handed Mr.
Green a g uitar, it was the first time
he had t ouched the instrument in a
dozen y ears.
Slowly, some of his old facility
returned. In the late 1990 s, Mr.
Green started a new band, called
the Splinter Group. He recorded
an acoustic album, “The Robert
Johnson Songbook,” in 1998, and a
few other albums.
He went on low-key tours of
Europe and the United States,
looking nothing like his old self.
Once slender, with dark, curly hair
and a mustache, he was now bald,
clean-shaven and portly. He often
strummed rhythm guitar while
others performed the majestic so-
los he had been known for in earli-
er years.
In interviews, he was gentle,
self-effacing and rambling.
“I was very critically ill for a
while there, you might say,” he told
the Los Angeles Times in 1998. “I’m
not really back yet.”
Peter Allen Greenbaum was
born Oct. 29, 1946, in London. His
father was a tailor who later
worked for the British postal ser-
vice. T he family adopted the name
Green i n the l ate 1940s.
While growing up in a working-
class neighborhood, Mr. Green
was often subjected to anti-Semit-
ic taunts. He became engrossed in
music at age 10, after an older
brother brought home a guitar.
By 15, Mr. Green had left school
to become an apprentice butcher,
but his real focus was on music,
inspired by b lues and early rock-
and-roll. He p layed bass a nd guitar
in several bands before joining
Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1966. A
year later, with Mayall’s blessing,
Mr. Green invited Fleetwood and
later McVie to leave the Blues-
breakers and form F leetwood Mac.
Over the years, Fleetwood Mac
changed personnel and its musical
style, becoming more of a pop-ori-
ented band with two female sing-
ers, Stevie Nicks and Christine
McVie. It became one of the most
successful groups of the 1970 s and
1980 s, selling more than 100 mil-
lion records. When Fleetwood Mac
was named to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1998 , Mr. Green
joined Santana in a performance
of “Black Magic Woman.”
Survivors include a daughter
from his marriage to Jane Samu-
els, which ended in divorce, and a
son from another relationship.
For years, Mr. G reen remained a
subject of enduring mystery and
tragedy in Britain. He s eemed to be
a cautionary tale of the rock-and-
roll life, like the burnout cases of
Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett or the
Beach Boys’ B rian Wilson.
Musician and writer Martin
Celmins published a biography of
Mr. Green in 2003, and the BBC
produced a documentary about
his life in 2009.
After 20 10, Mr. Green stopped
performing in public. When Mick
Fleetwood produced a star-stud-
ded London tribute concert in Mr.
Green’s honor in February, he did
not attend.
“I’ve been kind of dead for a l ong
time,” Mr. Green said in 1998. “I
couldn’t function at all. I really
haven’t got it all together yet, but
I’m working on it... I certainly
feel a l ot better w hen I play music,
however.”
[email protected]PETER GREEN, 73Deeply influential guitar hero of British blues
IRIS HOGREVE/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Green, seen in the 1990s, composed and performed the song
“Black Magic Woman” t wo years before it became a Santana hit.KEYSTONE FEATURES/GETTY IMAGES
Peter Green, second from left, co-founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967. The band’s lineup included, from
left, Mick Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer and John McVie; Green, though very much the undisputed
leader of the group, drew its name from Fleetwood and McVie. After a string of hits and much critical
success, he had a bad experience with hallucinogenic drugs and quit the band i n 1971.