Sometimes, it takes an addict: Dickie Peterson and Blue Cheer
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Dickie Peterson, the bassist and lead singer for the heavily amped Blue Cheer, dead at age 63 of metastasized prostate cancer. Best known for its name (a potent strain of LSD) and a 1968 rendition of the classic “Summertime Blues,” Blue Cheer members were not only enraged over Viet Nam, but “we were outraged at society in general and we were expressing it in a way that had never been done” in a style that The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll says was a “heavy-metal landmark.” While Peterson admits that band members took “a lot” of drugs, he acknowledged that while he still believed “LSD and such drugs have a positive effect…we took it over the top….We got very involved in all sorts of drugs….I was addicted to heroin for years.” While under the influence, he and his fellow band members took risks that others were unwilling to take and helped to create fundamentally new sounds, for better or worse.