Lee Dorman - RIP

[Led9]

Iron Butterfly and Captain Beyond bassist Lee Dorman has passed away apparently from heart failure. As I recall he was on a waiting list for a heart transplant for some time. For anyone who has ever delved into The Butterfly's music outside of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida you can see these guys were way ahead of their time. "Iron Butterfly Theme" recorded in '67 from the first LP is the first heavy metal song in my opinion. Dark, minor key and full of some of the heaviest fuzz distortion heard at the time. They could be poppy and even proggy at times, but nobody else seemed to latch onto the dark side the way they did until Black Sabbath. They did an about-face in 1970 and went with a dual lead harmony guitar sound when the Allman Brothers and Wishbone Ash were the only other bands doing such. I doubt you can find anybody doing tribal style drumming before Ron Bushy either. Also, Mike Pinera's talk box use in "Butterfly Bleu" is a first predating Joe Walsh by a good 3 years. R.I.P. Lee.

Rick

 

[EMB]

HEAVY certainly lived up to its title, if nothing else. This was actually a very solid band, and as psych went, the title track of IN-A-GADDA is just about unmatched, IMO.No one could have anticipated just how successful an album would be, which turned out to be something of a fluke: they could never get there again, though not for lack of trying. One classic was all they had in them, but they did see ahead to metal, and were tighter than most psych groups I can think of.

R.I.P.

ED