Jerry Miller, the lead guitarist from the 1960s psychedelic rock band Moby Grape, has died. He was 81.
While not a household name, Miller was admired by some of the greatest names of the rock era, Deadline reported. None other than Eric Clapton called Miller the "best guitar player in the world."
Miller's death was announced on the Moby Grape Facebook fan page. No cause of death was shared.
His wife, Jo, shared a message on the band's Facebook page: "Everybody flood the ether with Jerry Miller’s music. Play it all day long for me and him. And thank you all so much.”
Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Miller got his start with groups like The Bobby Fuller Four. He helped co-found Moby Grape in San Francisco in 1966.
Rock critics have regarded Moby Grape as an underappreciated band that never realized its potential.
Miller was the lead guitarist in the band, which was known for having three guitar players and multiple singer-songwriters.
The group's self-titled 1967 LP is considered a classic of the psychedelic era. The album reached No. 24 on the charts during the band's short commercial peak.
Their next album was a flop, however, and the band would implode eventually from drug use, mental illness and legal problems, AllMusic reported.
Three of the band's members - Miller, Peter Lewis, and Skip Spence - were caught consorting with underage girls before charges were dropped.
In another notorious incident, Spence came to the studio armed with a fire ax; he was later institutionalized.
While Moby Grape never achieved lasting fame, the band left an impression on their contemporaries.
Miller's fans included Led Zeppelin, which played Moby Grape songs during early rehearsals. Miller was also friends with guitar legend Jimi Hendrix.
“He was good, but somehow you didn’t think of him as the man who’d reinvent the electric guitar,” Miller told The Seattle Times in 2021. “The main thing you heard in those days was that he played too damn loud. Like me, I suppose.”
In his later years, Miller lived modestly off of gigs and guitar lessons in his native Tacoma, Washington, local newspaper The Inlander reported in 2014.
A local bar owner told the paper, “A lot of people, when they find out … they come back and they’re like, ‘Are you kidding me? What’s he doing here?"
