Akarma Italy
1969
Blue Cheer
About This Album
Blue Cheer, the fourth album, is the perpetual group in transition once again rolling with the punches. A vast improvement over New! Improved! Blue Cheer, the sound here is more contained, consistent, and identifiable. Rather than cover Eddie Cochran, as they did with their hit "Summertime Blues" off Vincebus Eruptum, the outside material is tellingly by Delaney Bramlett and MacDavis, a wonderfully laid-back "Hello L.A., Bye-Bye Birmingham." By this time they were sounding more like the Band than the first disc's monstrous musical onslaught, which resembled a naïve Cream or precursor to Grand Funk. Bruce Stephens decided to exit during this recording, but that didn't hamper things the way some of the New! Improved! Blue Cheer record suffered. Stephens' vocal performances are placed right in the middle of everything, tracks two and four on side A, tracks two and four on side B, he writing or co-writing three of the titles, and doing a fine job singing on keyboard player Ralph Burns Kellogg's "Better When We Try." The trading of vocals between founding member Dickie Peterson, who handles the other six titles, was a plus for this group, and as songwriter Gary Yoder contributed the opening and closing tracks, "Fool" and "The Same Old Story," his presence would make itself more valuable when he became guitarist on B.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4,5,6,7 and 8)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.