In July 1958, Eddie Cochran, one of the golden age of rock and roll’s greatest legends, released “Summertime Blues,” a rockabilly classic he co-wrote at 19.
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A decade later—and in the dead of winter—Blue Cheer released their own version of the song. Transforming Cochran’s polished classic into a notoriously distorted, proto-metal cover, the San Francisco band then had a sizzler on their hands.
More than that, though, Far Out reported that their gargantuan cover was the very first heavy metal song to ever break into the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“We were outraged at society in general, and we were expressing it in a way that had never been done,” bassist-slash-vocalist Dickie Peterson told the Albuquerque Journal in 2008, per The Washington Post, about how the trio channeled their rage into a mix of blues and acid rock music.
Widely recognized for its wall-of-sound volume and raw distortion, Blue Cheer’s “Summertime Blues” peaked at No. 14 on the survey. It was a feat that not only boosted its parent album, Vincebus Eruptum, to No. 11 on the Billboard 200, but also helped usher heavy metal into the mainstream.
Far Out also shared that the turning point for the subgenre included the arrival of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple in 1968, but also Steppenwolf enshrining the term in “Born to Be Wild” with their lyric, “Heavy metal thunder,” and, of course, the explosion of Blue Cheer’s landmark cover.
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“It was, for all intents and purposes, a major leap forward and a template for the genre’s future,” Far Out wrote, “showcasing the pace and headiness that many metal stalwarts would soon claim as their own.”
Cochran’s original did well for itself, too. Climbing to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Summertime Blues” made history as the singer-songwriter’s first Top 10 hit. It seemed like just about every band who took a stab at covering it had success. The Beach Boys in 1962, The Who in 1970, and even Alan Jackson in 1994 all proved the song’s versatility and ability to define whatever era it was released in.
But there was nothing quite like Blue Cheer’s fuzzed-out raw energy of the track. By replacing traditional rock melodies with towering distortion, thunderous bass, and aggressive drums, Peterson, Leigh Stephens, and Paul Whaley paved the way for bands like Black Sabbath and countless other heavy rock acts.
“Primarily, we were a loud, straight-into-you rock ‘n’ roll band, man,” Peterson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007, per the Los Angeles Times. “Our whole goal was to make music a physical experience as well as an audio experience.”
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Music experts and historians often cite Blue Cheer’s version of the track as one of the very first heavy metal songs ever recorded, pushing the boundaries and conventions of rock with louder amps, longer guitar solos, and more chaotic riffs, then essentially laying the groundwork for heavy metal as it would soon be defined.
When Rolling Stone then used the term “heavy metal” in a 1968 review of Blue Cheer’s album, the outlet all but cemented the band’s legacy as heavy metal pioneers. Just proves that sometimes all it takes to spark a music revolution is one teenager’s frustrations with a summer job.
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