The record
At a glance
- Artist
- Blue Cheer
- Released
- September 1970
- Album
- Fifth studio album
- Original tracks
- Eleven
- Label
- Philips PHS 600-347
- Producers
- Gary Yoder, Eric Albronda and Norman Mayell
Why it matters
The later lineup expands beyond one definition of heavy
The Original Human Being is Blue Cheer's fifth studio album and the first complete LP with Gary Yoder as principal guitarist and vocalist. Dickie Peterson remains the only Vincebus Eruptum member; Ralph Burns Kellogg and Norman Mayell continue from the self-titled fourth album. All eleven tracks are originals credited to members or close writing collaborators, with no adaptation equivalent to Summertime Blues, Satisfaction or the preceding Dylan cover. Yoder and Gary Grelecki co-write five songs, giving the album a new writing center distinct from Peterson's early authorship.
Kellogg's keyboards broaden into piano, organ, synthesizer and occasional bass, while Mayell adds guitar, percussion and sitar to his drum role. Babaji (Twilight Raga) is an instrumental built around sitar and electronic-keyboard color rather than the band's standard blues-rock frame. Horn arrangements appear on selected songs, especially Good Times Are So Hard to Find, Love of a Woman and Preacher, without turning the whole album into a horn-rock project. The record matters because its breadth is specific and documented: later Blue Cheer becomes more arranged, original and multi-instrumental rather than simply less loud.
San Francisco, 1970
Gary Yoder joins after two guest tracks
Blue Cheer had ended 1969 with Peterson as sole original member and Yoder guesting on the self-titled album's opening and closing tracks. Bruce Stephens then left, and Yoder entered the principal lineup alongside Peterson, Kellogg and Mayell. The fifth album was recorded at Mercury Sound Studios West in San Francisco. Gary Yoder and Eric Albronda receive production credits, with Mayell also credited as producer for a bounded part of the project.
Mark Harman and George Horn engineered the recordings; Russ Gary mixed and edited at Wally Heider Studios. Philips issued the album as PHS 600-347 in September 1970, with BC #5 printed as part of its original identity. The original side division places five tracks on side one and six on side two.
The same four principal musicians continued onto Oh! Pleasant Hope, a rare moment of lineup stability in the band's early catalogue.
The fifth-album four
Peterson, Yoder, Kellogg and Mayell
Peterson no longer dominates the writing or lead vocals, but his bass and three principal vocal features preserve a distinct line to the early band. Yoder becomes the main frontman across much of the record, joining harmonica and sustained guitar to a more controlled singing style. Kellogg provides the harmonic architecture and contributes two contrasting songs: the longer Make Me Laugh and the short Tears By My Bed. Mayell expands far beyond drums; Babaji makes his sitar and compositional role central rather than decorative.
Grelecki does not belong in the performing lineup merely because he co-writes and designs the package. Albronda's producer role continues his long association with Blue Cheer without implying a return to the drum chair. The additional horns are arrangement-specific; their presence on selected tracks should not be generalized across all eleven. Bruce Stephens and Paul Whaley appear in some aggregated databases but are not members of the principal fifth-album lineup.
Expanded hard rock
Horns, keyboards, sitar and a lean boogie foundation
Good Times Are So Hard to Find opens with driving organ, rhythm and horns, turning scarcity into motion. Love of a Woman uses descending horn responses and Peterson's blues vocal for a more arranged kind of pressure. Make Me Laugh stretches Kellogg's song across keyboard-led changes and vocal strain. Pilot gives Yoder's voice, guitar and harmonica a forward-looking flight frame.
Babaji (Twilight Raga) closes side one as an instrumental sitar and synthesizer departure. Preacher starts side two with horn punctuation and a firm, public-address groove. Black Sun darkens the Yoder-Grelecki vocabulary through compact hard rock. Tears By My Bed reduces the scale for Kellogg's country-inflected lament.
Man on the Run returns Peterson to slow blues and hunted movement. Sandwich loosens into the album's funkiest extended groove. Rest at Ease uses a longer descending close to turn the programme's search for movement into release.
Track guide
Eleven originals across a five/six sequence
Good Times Are So Hard to Find
Housman and Mayell open with scarcity, but organ, horns and a driving rhythm refuse resignation. Yoder's lead voice treats good times as something actively pursued, establishing a polished surface with physical momentum underneath.
Love of a Woman
Peterson writes and sings a blues-based relationship song widened by horn responses. The arrangement gives each vocal phrase a public echo, making private dependence sound larger without restoring the early trio's distortion wall.
Make Me Laugh
Kellogg's composition turns laughter into demand rather than spontaneous pleasure. Keyboards organize the five-minute movement, while Peterson's strained vocal keeps amusement from becoming light relief.
Pilot
Grelecki and Yoder move from ground-level difficulty toward flight. Harmonica and guitar provide motion around Yoder's voice, and the title works as role and orientation rather than a detailed aviation narrative.
Babaji (Twilight Raga)
Mayell's instrumental closes side one outside the normal blues-rock vocabulary. Sitar, percussion and electronic keyboard color make twilight a gradual change of atmosphere, not an exotic interlude pasted onto another song.
Preacher
The second side begins with public authority. Horn accents and a firm groove support Yoder's lead, while the Grelecki-Yoder writing leaves the preacher's force audible without requiring endorsement of the message.
Black Sun
A familiar life-giving image is darkened into contradiction. The band answers with compact hard rock: guitar, bass and drums regain edge after Preacher's broader arrangement, while keyboards preserve the later lineup's depth.
Tears By My Bed
Kellogg contracts the record into a short country-inflected lament. The original Philips title uses By, while later catalogues often print In; the song's loneliness remains the clear center beneath that documentary variation.
Man on the Run
Peterson's original title and song restore the hunted figure that some later digital services mislabel Man of the Sun. Slow blues, harmonica and a moving guitar line make flight anxious rather than heroic.
Sandwich
The everyday title opens into a loose five-minute groove. Yoder and Grelecki leave literal explanation secondary to rhythm, allowing bass, organ, drums and guitar to make assembly itself the joke and musical method.
Rest at Ease
The final Yoder-Grelecki composition offers the release promised by its title only gradually. A longer form and descending close let tension settle in stages, ending the eleven-song programme through controlled withdrawal.
Search and release
Scarcity, work, belief, darkness, flight and rest
The album is not a narrative concept, but scarcity and search connect its opening, pilot, fugitive and final rest. Good times, laughter and love are desired states rather than secure possessions. Pilot and Man on the Run present movement as chosen direction and forced escape. Preacher introduces public authority, while Black Sun turns a universal symbol unstable.
Babaji places contemplation at the side-one boundary without supplying a lyrical doctrine. Tears By My Bed makes grief private and domestic after the public scale of Preacher. Sandwich deliberately lowers symbolic grandeur, letting ordinary assembly become playful groove. Rest at Ease closes the album by moving toward calm, answering the opening scarcity without claiming that every conflict is solved.
Philips 347
BC #5 and the original-human claim
The original US Philips catalogue number is PHS 600-347. The sleeve uses BC #5 The Original Human Being, identifying both catalogue position and title. Gary Grelecki contributed design, Desmond Strobel art direction and Bruce Steinheimer and Yoder photography.
Five tracks fill side one and six side two, with Babaji and Rest at Ease as contrasting endings. The original Philips programme prints Tears By My Bed and Man On The Run. Later digital catalogues contain transcription errors including Tears in My Bead and Man of the Sun; those are not used as historical master titles.
September 1970
September 1970: number 188 and a narrowing audience
The Original Human Being appeared in September 1970 as Blue Cheer's fifth studio album. It reached number 188 on the Billboard album chart, returning the band to the listing for a short run at a much lower level than its first three charting LPs. The album's eleven originals and polished production did not generate a major single.
Contemporary expectations tied to Blue Cheer's early extremity made the horn, country and sitar elements easy to misread as loss of identity. Retrospective reviews remain divided over the polish but often identify Babaji, Man on the Run, Black Sun and Sandwich as evidence of genuine range.
The principal quartet stayed together for Oh! Pleasant Hope, although that album moved further toward folk and country textures.
BC #5
A polished fifth album with no cover-version safety net
The album documents Yoder's full arrival as writer, guitarist, harmonica player, producer and lead singer. Babaji gives Mayell the catalogue's clearest individual compositional showcase and prevents the album from collapsing into generic boogie. Kellogg's two songs demonstrate opposite scales: extended keyboard-led tension and concise country sadness. Peterson's smaller writing share should not be confused with absence; his bass and three lead-vocal performances remain central.
The selected horns connect Blue Cheer to broader 1970 San Francisco studio practice without defining every track. The all-original programme distinguishes the album from each of the preceding four LPs, all of which included at least one outside composition. Original-title restoration matters because current digital metadata can turn a fugitive into a sun figure and a bedside lament into a typographical error. Its legacy is a stable later band using expanded tools while still capable of hard, strange and unpolished moments.
Original programme
Preserve the Philips titles against digital errors
The original album contains eleven tracks. Babaji closes side one and is instrumental. Rest at Ease is the original ending. Use Tears By My Bed for the original Philips programme.
Use Man on the Run, not the digital error Man of the Sun. All eleven tracks are original compositions. Yoder, Peterson, Kellogg and Mayell form the principal lineup. Horn and additional-instrument roles remain bounded to documented arrangements.
A listening path
Move from hard times through twilight toward rest
- Begin with hard times moving through horns and organ.
- Follow Peterson's blues into Kellogg's longer demand.
- Let Pilot lead toward the twilight instrumental.
- Restart with Preacher and darken into Black Sun.
- Use the short bedside lament as a reset.
- Follow the fugitive into the loose Sandwich groove.
- Let Rest at Ease complete the original programme.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- The Original Human Being track list, credits and review — AllMusic
- Official eleven-track digital programme and September date — Apple Music
- Official digital credits and album review — Qobuz
- Original PHS 600-347 sequence and title spellings — Both Sides Now Philips discography
- Original European Philips programme — Recordsale archive
- Blue Cheer album chart history — Billboard
- Blue Cheer catalogue chronology — AllMusic