Cliff Burton Metallica Royalties Donated To Students

The Cliff Burton Metallica Royalties Have Been Donated To Students.

Ray Burton, father of the late founding Metallica bassist Cliff Burton has donated a substantial amount of his son’s royalties to music student scholarships.

In a recent Alphabetallica podcast interview, Ray Burton revealed that he and Cliff’s family have been quietly donating his continuing royalties to scholarships for music students at Castro Valley High School in the San Francisco Bay Area, the school in which Cliff Burton attended.

“The kids who won it, they invariably write and thank me for. And I think Cliff probably would have done that with his money, because he was not against education by any means. He liked it very much.” – Ray Burton

Cliff’s father, Ray Burton also said that despite Metallica’s tremendous early (and continuing) success, his son “was quite a humble person. My son just didn’t like the strutting types that so much of rock ‘n’ roll musicians get to be when they become popular. He just liked to do his wild playing of heavy metal music. Cliff never changed.”

Cliff played on Metallica’s first three albums before being tragically killed at the age of 24 when Metallica’s tour bus crashed on September 27, 1986 in Sweden.

Watch below as Ray Burton stood in for his son when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.

Ray Burton’s Acceptance Speech (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction 2009) [HD]

Ray Burton's Acceptance Speech (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction 2009) [HD]

The “Proud Papa”, now 92-years-old, has also been seen attending a slew of recent Metallica gigs!

“Just keep going like crazy and look back when it’s over. Otherwise you just get confused.” – Clifford Lee Burton