I was a fan, for over 40 years. Collected all the albums, etc.
Saw them live several times back in the day, and not long ago at Emo's in Austin.
Here's part of the NYTimes obit:
" Dickie Peterson, whose screaming vocals and pounding bass lines helped push the psychedelic blues-rock trio Blue Cheer into the musical territory that would later be called heavy metal, died Monday in Erkelenz, Germany. He was 63 and lived
Saw them live several times back in the day, and not long ago at Emo's in Austin.
Here's part of the NYTimes obit:
" Dickie Peterson, whose screaming vocals and pounding bass lines helped push the psychedelic blues-rock trio Blue Cheer into the musical territory that would later be called heavy metal, died Monday in Erkelenz, Germany. He was 63 and lived
in Erkelenz and Cologne.
The cause was liver cancer, said Ron Rainey, his manager.
Blue Cheer, a San Francisco group formed in late 1966, took its name from a street brand of LSD but never exuded the peace and love vibe of groups like Jefferson Airplane or the Grateful Dead. It stood for raw, animalistic power, on full display in the raucous, hard-driving “Summertime Blues,” the group’s biggest hit.
Pitted against Paul Whaley’s savagely thrashing drums and Leigh Stephens’s screeching guitar, Mr. Peterson, the group’s lead singer, adopted the only possible vocal strategy: he opened his mouth wide and emitted primal sounds at top volume."
