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Moby Grape Guitarist and Founding Member Jerry Miller Dead at 81

Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller, praised by Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin, has died at age 81.

By 1966, Miller was living in San Francisco, where one of the most creatively fruitful scenes in the country was blossoming, with acts like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company getting underway. Miller joined former Airplane member Skip Spence and other local musicians in forming Moby Grape, which quickly won a reputation as one of the most promising bands in the Bay Area. “His playing was never self-indulgent, and his soloing was propulsive, always aware of where the song was headed,” Rolling Stone ’s David Fricke wrote in a 2010 feature that included Miller in his list of his 100 Greatest Guitarists at Number 68.

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