Cliff Burton

Cliff Burton was an American musician and bassist of the American heavy-metal band Metallica whose four-year music career — abruptly ended by his September 27, 1986 sudden death at age 24 — produced one of the foundational documents of 1980s American thrash-metal music. He was born Clifford Lee Burton on February 10, 1962, in Castro Valley, California, into a working-class American family. His father Jan Burton was a Bay Area-area highway-construction worker, and his mother Jan Burton was a homemaker.

The October 1975 sudden death of his older brother Scott Burton from a brain-aneurysm-related illness (when Cliff was 13) shaped his early-life biographical narrative — across which he subsequently committed to becoming "the best bassist for my brother." His teenage and early-adulthood music career across 1979–1982 — across multiple San Francisco Bay Area-area glam-rock-and-thrash-metal bands (particularly the band Trauma, with whom Burton performed at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood across mid-1982) — produced his early-1980s American thrash-metal public profile.

His late-1982 Whisky a Go Go performance with Trauma — at which Metallica members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich observed Burton's bass-playing technique — produced his December 1982 audition for and hiring by Metallica. The December 1982 hiring as Metallica's bassist (replacing the band's previous bassist Ron McGovney) launched his 1982–1986 four-year tenure as the bassist of Metallica.

His 1983 first commercial Metallica album Kill 'Em All — released July 25, 1983 by Megaforce Records — launched his 1980s American thrash-metal-genre public profile. His 1984 second commercial Metallica album Ride the Lightning — released July 27, 1984 by Megaforce Records — produced his mid-1980s American thrash-metal commercial breakthrough. His 1986 third commercial Metallica album Master of Puppets — released March 3, 1986 by Elektra Records — has been continuously cited as one of the foundational documents of 1980s American thrash-metal music. His foundational bass-playing-and-songwriting contributions to the 1986 Master of Puppets album produced his American thrash-metal-bass public profile.

He died on September 27, 1986, at age 24, in Kronoberg County, Sweden, in a Metallica tour-bus accident (across which the tour-bus skidded off the road on a frosty Swedish road outside Dörarp, Sweden, and Burton was crushed under the bus during the rollover). His sudden death at age 24 shaped Metallica's later biographical narrative.

His name Cliff derives from the Old English place-name meaning "cliff" or "slope." Cliff has been a popular American boys' name across the early-to-mid 20th century.