Paul Whaley

Paul Whaley was an American rock drummer, born January 14, 1947 in Albany, CA, USA. 1964-67, he was the drummer in garage rock band The Oxford Circle in the university city of Davis near Sacramento, the state capital in northern California. One of the other members was Gary Yoder on guitar and vocal. When Paul Whaley left for San Francisco with friend Dickie Peterson of Sacramento band Group "B" in January 1967 to found what would become legendary acid rock trio Blue Cheer, The Oxford Circle split up, and Gary Yoder founded psychedelic rock band KAK, also in San Francisco, with former The Oxford Circle guitarist and singer Dehner Patten. They released a sought after LP in early 1969, and called it quits soon after. Blue Cheer started out as a band of six, but after Whaley and Peterson had seen The Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey Pop Festival in mid June, they decided they would go for the power trio format (that had worked so well for Cream, and would work very well for the prolific Grand Funk Railroad). The first Blue Cheer LP, the January 1968 Vincebus Eruptum, saw an unbelievably heavy acid rock trio that would become the model for many 70s heavy rock bands (Rush, Triumph, Budgie, Motörhead...). But already their summer followup, August's OutsideInside, was a more psychedelic rock effort which wasn't selling anywhere near what their debut had done. Also, founder guitarist Leigh Stephens was let go due to his clean lifestyle (!), whereas Whaley left for a while to clean up his act, while Randy Holden was one of the guitar players. To cut a long story short, in 1969 Gary Lee Yoder joined his friends in Blue Cheer on guitar, vocal and mouth harp, and stayed for 2 years with the band - now a quartet - turning toward a more commercial heavy prog/hardrock style, much like Steppenwolf and Grand Funk Railroad - who also changed styles after only 2 LPs and a double live album 1969-70, and became the more progressive, keyboard heavy rock trio Grand Funk already with their 3rd studio effort, Closer to Home in 1970. During these years, people came and left Blue Cheer - among them Dickie's brother and former Group "B" bandmate Jerre Peterson. Gary Yoder quit after 2 years in 1971, and disappeared from public life, just as Leigh Stephens had done 2 years before him. Paul Whaley came and went in Blue Cheer for 36 years, until he died from heart failure January 28, 2019 in Regensburg, Germany, where he'd been living for many years. He was the son of country music singer Paul Edward Whaley.