Metallica the seventh-biggest recording act in American history are consummate musicians — but it wasn't always that way. A significant proportion of their playing expertise was acquired from a pivotal three-year period in their history — 1983 to 1986 — during which their music a potent variant of thrash metal evolved from garage-level to sophisticated progressive heights — thanks to the teachings of their bass player Cliff Burton.
The San Francisco-raised Burton pushed the band to new musical levels with his musical training songwriting ability and phenomenal bass guitar skills. Cliff's life was short but influential; his death was sudden and shocking. With his death Metallica's most critically acclaimed period of activity ended. They went on to record huge-selling albums but by their own admission never pushed the creative envelope as radically as they had done in the first four years of their career.
