Blue Cheer

Guitar work has been handled by Andrew "Duck" MacDonald since that time. Dorsey Burnette died of a massive coronary in Canoga Park, California and is buried with his brother Johnny in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Last tour was a club tour of England in 2004. Original members Dickie Peterson and Paul Whaley re-located to Germany in early 90's where they still live. He is best known for his prolific writing talents, including songs recorded by then teen idol Ricky Nelson. Last release was Live in Japan, 1999. He played bass in his younger brother Johnny Burnette's rockabilly group, and as a solo artist had a few significant hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s such as Tall Oak Tree, Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hey Little One. Group still exists as of 2005. Dorsey Burnette (December 28, 1932 - August 19, 1979) was an early Rockabilly singer in Memphis, Tennessee.

After Leigh Stevens was replaced by Randy Holden, formerly of Los Angeles garage rock band The Other Half, in 1969, Blue Cheer's style changed to a more commercial hard rock sound a la Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly. 1970 saw the release of Human Being and then 1971's Oh! Pleasant Hope. The group underwent several personnel changes after the 1968 release of Outsideinside, and then through yet more changes during and after 1969's New! Improved! Blue Cheer (different guitarists on side 1 and 2), followed by Blue Cheer. Julian Cope has written, "In 1968, nothing but nothing in America and Britain sounded as brutal as Blue Cheer except for the Velvet Underground." [1] (http://www.juliancope.com/unsung/features/index.php?id=4).

The band has been subsequently acclaimed as an influence on garage rock, punk music, heavy metal, and grunge. The group's sound was hard to categorize, but was definitely blues-based, psychedelic, and very loud. (The single peaked at #14 on the Billboard pop charts, and the album peaked at #11.). Their first hit was a cover version of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum (1968).

The band was named after a strain of LSD promoted by underground chemist and Grateful Dead backer Owsley Stanley; the drug had taken its name from a popular detergent. Original personnel were singer/bass guitarist Dick Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stevens and drummer Paul Whaley. Blue Cheer was a San Francisco based power trio of the late 1960s.