San Francisco-based
Blue Cheer were what, in the late '60s, they used to call a "power trio":
Dickie Peterson(bass, vocals),
Paul Whaley (drums), and
Leigh Stephens (guitar). They played what later was called heavy metal, and when they debuted in January 1968 with the album
Vincebus Eruptum and a Top 40 cover of
Eddie Cochran's hit "Summertime Blues," they sounded louder and more extreme than anything that had come before them. As it turned out, they were a precursor of much that would come after.
Unfortunately,
Blue Cheer themselves didn't get much chance to profit from their prescience. Shortly after their breakthrough, the group were wracked by personnel changes.
Leigh Stephens was replaced by
Randy Holden after the release of the second album,
Outsideinside (August 1968).
Holden left during the recording of the third album, and
Bruce Stephens (vocals, guitar) and Ralph Burns Kellogg (keyboards) joined to finish New! Improved! Blue Cheer (March 1969). Then
Whaley quit and was replaced by
Norman Mayell, leaving
Peterson as the only original member.
Bruce Stephens quit during the recording of fourth album
Blue Cheer (December 1969), and
Gary L. Yoder joined to complete it.
Peterson, Kellogg,
Mayell, and
Yoder then made
The Original Human Being (September 1970) and Oh! Pleasant Hope (April 1971) before
Blue Cheer broke up.
Dickie Peterson reorganized a new version of the group in 1979, and in 1985
Peterson,
Whaley, and guitarist Tony Rainier released a new
Blue Cheer album, The Beast Is Back....
Dickie Peterson, the sole constant in
Blue Cheer's history, died on October 12, 2009. Declaring the band couldn't be
Blue Cheer without him, his bandmates immediately retired the group. Guitarist
Gary L. Yoder, who was part of the lineup for the final three albums for Philips, died on August 7, 2021. ~ William Ruhlmann