Peter Reinhold Kuch was born February 21, 1946 in Stuttgart, Germany and  passed on from this earth on Sunday April 23, 2017 in Farmington, New Mexico, his home for the past 34 years. Besides being my friend for the past 46 years, he was a fellow musician and former roommate. Peter was an accomplished drummer and  came to the United States in 1967 with the German spin off of "Up with People”, “Sing Out Deutschland". He stayed with Up with People until 1974 when he became the drummer for the rock Band "Arizona". The band recorded several albums for RCA records in the mid 70's and Peter also played drums on many Up with People albums as well as several NFL Super Bowl halftime shows. I first had the opportunity to work with Peter during the summer of 1971 in Tucson, Arizona where we were recording a live album for Up with People. I was fascinated by his precision yet there was such an effortless flow and life in his drumming. We toured together in several casts of Up with People over the following 4 years before we joined together to form the band "Arizona" in 1974. We were roommates for almost 3 years and many times shared a hotel room in our travels with the band. He was a voracious reader. After playing in clubs until the early morning hours, he would return to his room and read until the sun came up. During rehearsal, it was standard operating procedure for Peter to be playing along with the band while either holding a book in one hand or having one propped in a conspicuous place on his drum kit. He also loved to play board games of strategy. Late nights after gigs or during down times during rehearsal or off days, the band would play the board game “Risk” where he was ruthless and hated to lose. His attention to detail was uncanny. When we would learn a new song from the Top 40 when we played in dance clubs it would only take him once or twice to cover the drum parts and then he would take out his trusty book and sit on his drum stool read as the rest of us learned our parts, all the while playing along with the kick drum and snare while reading.
He has no known living relatives. Now comes time to take care of the affairs of my friend, our friend. If not for the kind and considerate compassion of Heather McCollaum and her family, a friend and neighbor who essentially adopted Peter as her "Papa", and cared for him during his illness and cared for his animals, things would have been quite worse for Peter. I personally will be forever grateful to her for her unselfish love and care of my brother. I am asking for your help this one last time for Peter to recieve a proper send off and exit from this earth. I would like to try and raise money to pay for his cremation and end of life expenses so that Heather and her family are spared the additional burden of resposibility. I you can, please help with this final tribute.

If Peter impacted your life in any fashion, I hope y ou will honor him with a small contribution. A memorial service will be planned at a later date but please give now if you can.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Willie Knowles