James Alan Hetfield Day

Happy Birthday!!!

James Alan Hetfield, vocalist and guitarist of the thrash Metallica, is one of the icons of the hard rock of the past 26years. His musical training owes much to great heroes of the melodic music-- unbelievably and, obviously, to renowned characters of hard rock. On this occasion, Hetfield revealed to Rolling Stone magazine your personal playlist and offered brief reflections on each track.

Ironically, the voice of Metallica (indeed, a defining voice of his rock n' roll generation) very nearly wasn't a voice at all, simply because in the early days, James Hetfield didn't fancy being a lead vocalist. Metallica tried a few different vocal/guitar configurations. Some of the options considered included adding another guitar player, having then-lead guitar player Dave Mustaine play the sole guitar and asking John Bush from Armored Saint to sing for the band. Of course common sense prevailed, James decided to fight harder to establish himself as a frontman and the results are history.

"Free Bird" (also spelled "Freebird") is a song by the American southern 
rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was first featured on the band's debut album 
(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) in 1973, and has been included on 
subsequent albums released by the band.

~networld & jh, ls