Did You Know…three contenders for the first heavy metal hit single were all covers of Top 40 pop records?
Although the origins of when — and by whom — “heavy metal” was first applied to music is murky, “heavy” was common late 1960s counterculture slang for something deep, serious, or profound. Applied to music, it came to describe the sound of loud guitars, distortion, and a dense rhythm track.
That sound gained widespread popularity in 1968 when both Wheels Of Fire by Cream and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly reached the album Top 10.
Our first single candidate is “Summertime Blues” by Blue Cheer, which peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 (#9 in Cash Box) in the spring of 1968.
The song had first been a hit 10 years earlier when rock ’n’ roll pioneer Eddie Cochran, who also co-wrote it, took it to #8.
Blue Cheer (named after the band’s favorite type of LSD) was a San Francisco power trio known for its roof-raising, ear-splitting volume. In their hands, Eddie’s rollicking summer protest song was transformed into a churning mix of distorted guitar, thunderous bass, pounding drums, and snarling vocals.
Up next is New York City’s Vanilla Fudge and their metal-esque reinvention of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”
Originally the eighth #1 smash that ace Motown songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote for The Supremes in 1966, the song was transformed just two years later into a psych-rock tour de force. Inspired by the organ-based sound of The Rascals, Vanilla Fudge slowed it to a crawl, while Carmine Appice’s dramatic drumming and Mark Stein’s over-the-top lead vocal drove it into entirely new territory.
Candidate #3 was originally recorded by Georgia-born Billy Joe Royal, who rose to fame in 1965 with “Down In The Boondocks” and “I Knew You When,” both written by Billy’s good buddy Joe South.
One day, while South and Royal were driving to Nashville, Joe was working on “Rose Garden” (later a huge country and pop hit for Lynn Anderson) for Billy’s next session. When Royal rejected “Rose,” South leaned over the dashboard and knocked out “Hush” in a few minutes.
Royal’s 1967 version of “Hush” stalled mid-chart, but a year later British hard rockers Deep Purple took it to #4. From the opening wolf howls onward, Purple’s “Hush” pointed toward a new direction of heavier popular music.
There are, of course, a number of other candidates for the title of first heavy metal hit single.
Among them are “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks and “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf (although “Born’s” lyricist said that the famous phrase “heavy meal thunder” referred simply to the sound and feel of driving a car or motorcycle on a California desert highway).
Now it’s your turn. What’s your pick for the first heavy metal hit single?
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