ROCK LEGEND NEWS FORMIDABLE 60s & 70s BLUE CHEER - PROTOTYPE METAL BAND
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BLUE CHEER BASSIST & VOCALIST
DICKIE PETERSON The First Heavy Metal Song &
Pioneers Of Heavy Psychedelic, Acid Rock, Blues Rock Style Metal MORE 60s & 70s METAL GODS... YESTERDAY’S CHILDREN UFO CROW PETE WAY FUSE RANDY HOLDEN STEPPENWOLF STRAY TEAR GAS PAUL KOSSOFF SHORT CROSS D O N A T E
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ROCK LEGEND NEWS SEPTEMBER 2020 | LEGENDS
BLUE CHEER GOLDEN YEARS (1967–1969) Blue Cheer came together in 1967. The band was put together by Dickie Peterson who lived at 369 Haight Street in San Francisco, where the sixties music scene was starting to hit the high note. Peterson had previously been with the Davis-based band Andrew Staples & The Oxford Circle, as well as future Blue Cheer members Paul Whaley and Gary Lee Yoder. The original Blue Cheer personnel were singer/bassist Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens and Eric Albronda as drummer. Albronda was later replaced by Whaley, who was joined by Peterson’s brother Jerre (guitar), Vale Hamanaka (keyboards), and Jere Whiting (vocals, harmonica). Albronda continued his association with Blue Cheer as a member of Blue Cheer management, as well as being the producer or co-producer of five Blue Cheer albums. The band was managed by an inactive member of the Hells Angels named Allen “Gut” Terk. Early on, it was decided that the lineup should be trimmed down. It was said that Blue Cheer decided to adopt a power trio configuration after seeing Jimi Hendrix perform at the Monterey Pop Festival, Blue Cheer is often credited as one of the very earliest but was later proven to be false. pioneers of heavy metal and their version of Hamanaka and Whiting were “Summertime Blues” has been cited as the first asked to leave. Jerre Peterson heavy metal song. According to Tim Hills in his book, The didn’t want to remain in the group Many Lives of the Crystal Ballroom, “Blue Cheer was the without them, so he departed as epitome of San Francisco psychedelia.” Jim Morrison of The well, leaving Dickie, Leigh and Doors characterized the group as “the single most powerPaul as a trio. Their first hit was a ful band I’ve ever seen” and Eric Clapton defined them as cover version of Eddie Cochran’s “probably the originators of heavy metal”. Blue Cheer influ“Summertime Blues” from their enced such late 1970s bands as East-European psychedeldebut album Vincebus Eruptum ic hardcore band Galloping Coroners. (1968). The single peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, their only such hit, and the album peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 chart. In Canada, the song peaked at No. 3 on the RPM Magazine charts. The “Summertime Blues” single was backed with Dickie Peterson’s original song “Out Of Focus”. Peterson also contributed to the album the eight-minute “Doctor Please” and “Second Time Around”, which features Paul Whaley’s frantic drum solo. Filling out the record, the band cranked out blues covers “Rock Me Baby” (by B.B. King) and “Parchman Farm” (Mose Allison, but retitled “Parchment Farm”). The group underwent several personnel changes, the first occurring after the 1968 release of Outsideinside after Leigh Stephens left the band due to musical differences or, as some report, deafness. He was replaced by Randy Holden, formerly of Los Angeles garage rock band The Other Half. On 1969’s New! Improved! there were different guitarists on side 1 and side 2 (Randy Holden and Bruce
Dickie Peterson’s Blue Cheer House (R), 369 Haight Street in San Francisco (Google 2019) Stephens) due to Holden’s unanticipated departure from the band. Following Holden’s departure the band’s lineup initially consisted of Dickie Peterson (bass), Tom Weisser (guitar), and Mitch Mitchell (drums), before Whaley returned and Bruce Stephens joined the band. Later, Ralph Burns Kellogg also joined the band on keyboards. Blue Cheer’s style now changed to a more commercial hard rock sound à la Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly. By the fourth album Blue Cheer Paul Whaley had left the band and had been replaced by Norman Mayell, and following the release of the fourth album Bruce Stephens also left the band and was succeeded by Gary Lee Yoder who helped complete the album. According to Dickie Peterson the group’s lifestyle during this period caused problems with the music industry and press. Peterson said the group was outraged by the Vietnam War and society in general. Referemce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues rock or acid rock style, and are also credited as being some of the earliest pioneers of heavy metal, with their cover of “Summertime Blues� sometimes cited as the first in the genre. They have also been noted as influential in the development of genres as disparate as punk rock, stoner rock, doom metal, experimental rock, and grunge.
ROCK LEGEND NEWS SEPTEMBER 2020 | LEGENDS
“Blue Cheer” was the name of a variety of LSD made by chemist and Grateful Dead patron Owsley Stanley and the band was probably named after that, although the name existed earlier, as the name of a laundry detergent after which the LSD variety itself was named.as well as being the producer or co-producer of five Blue Cheer albums.