Clifford Lee Burton was born on 10 February 1962. The first band Cliff was in was called Easy Street. It was a bar band that did mostly covers. He then decided to join the band Trauma, which he became bored with quickly. He wanted to do more experimental stuff, rather than play the commercial junk. Then, Brian Slagel, president of Metal Blade Records saw Trauma at The Troubadour in L.A. and immediately informed Metallica of Cliff, insisting, “he is Metallica.” Metallica’s bassist Ron McGovney was decent, but not good enough. James Hetfield said in an interview once that he taught Ron how to play bass. About a month later, James and Lars went to check out Cliff at Whiskey A Go-Go and were amazed at Cliff’s lead guitar-like bass playing. Lars and James immediately tried to get Cliff to jam with them. Cliff at first refused, then said he would if the band would relocate from L.A. to his hometown of San Francisco, which they did.
Cliff was with Metallica for the first three albums, Kill ’Em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master Of Puppets, as well as the Jump In The Fire E.P. and the Creeping Death/Garage Days Revisited E.P. His most notable works are his bass solo from Kill ’Em All called “(Anasthesia)--Pulling Teeth,” the intro to “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and the lead bass in “The Call Of Ktulu” from Ride The Lightning, and the bass solo in “Orion” and the bass intro in “Damage, Inc.” from Master Of Puppets. Cliff taught James what he knew of music theory (he had taken the course in college) and helped to develop Metallica’s sound further, which is evident on Master Of Puppets. It was a tragic loss when he was killed in that bus accident on 27 September 1986 in Denmark.
Tribute was paid to Cliff Burton
through $19.98 Home Vid -- Cliff ’Em All!, a collection of bootleg
footage and stuff shot for TV featuring Metallica live during the 3½
years when Cliff was in the band, including bass solos. Another tribute
to Cliff is the song “To Live Is To Die” from …And Justice For All.
The song was based on a couple of riffs that Cliff had written. James
and Lars added to them and made this instrumental. The poem that
James reads in the middle of the song was written by Cliff, and the title
was a quote that Cliff once said. This site is my tribute to Cliff
Burton. It contains sound clips of Cliff’s solos and a QuickTime
movie from Cliff ’Em All, articles, and quotes. I will be
adding more pictures, links, articles, and quotes as I get them.
If you would like to send any pictures, send them to