Cliff Burton's Father Has Been Donating Metallica Royalties to Musicians

The father of the late-Metallica bassist Cliff Burton has been donating royalty checks from his son's massively successful albums to music scholarships at Cliff's old high school.

Ray Burton, 92, told Alphabettica that his family has received Burton's royalty checks since the bassist's death in 1986. Ray has been donating the money to Cliff's alma mater, Castro Valley High School, to help send aspiring musicians to college.

"The kids that have won it thank me for it," he tells Ultimate Guitar. "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 says Cliff's first royalty check was $1,500. When he received it, the first thing he did was take his parents out to dinner. 

The elder Burton says Metallica was never his kind of music, but he concedes "it is entertaining."

It's also done a lot of good for a lot of people.

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