SUMMERTIME BLUES IN THE SPRING

4/17/1960 - Sadly, another never to be answered WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN question begins in the world of entertainment, specifically the young genre of rock-and-roll music, when 21-year-old American guitarist, Edward Ray "Eddie" Cochran succumbs to the injuries he suffered the day before in an automobile accident while touring Great Britain with singer Gene Vincent.

Cochran

Cochran is born October 3, 1938 in Albert Lea, Minnesota, the youngest of five children, to Alice and Frank R. Cochran, northern transplants from Oklahoma.  From a very young age, he is drawn to music, and when the family moves to Bell Gardens, California when Eddie is eleven in 1952, his destiny becomes more apparent.  Enrolled at Bell Gardens Junior High School and wanting to play drums in the school orchestra, the young musician is told he can't play drums without first mastering the piano, but piano lessons take too much time and money, so he decides trombone is what he wants to play, but the director of the school band tells the Cochran Family that the boy doesn't have the "lip" for the instrument.  Debating whether to quit the band altogether, Eddie's brother Bill teaches him how to play a few chords on his old Kay guitar and Cochran finds his instrument.  In 1953, he and a fellow junior high school friend, Fred Conrad Smith, form a band they brand The Melody Boys.  Honing his craft, by 1955 they are backing up country singer Hank Cochran (the pair are unrelated, but will soon tour as the Cochran Brothers) on the road and in the recording studio.  Hearing Elvis Presley in Dallas in late 1955, Cochran soon is mixing his country stylings with rock-and-roll chording into a type of playing that becomes known as rockabilly. 

Just A Baby

Young Eddie

California Youth

Studio

Buying guitar strings at the Bell Gardens Music Center in the fall of 1956, Eddie meets Jerry Capehart, who will become his mentor, manager, and songwriting partner.  Partnership formed, the Cochran Brothers is soon left behind for writing, recording, and performing songs with Capehart (who needs a front for his lack of singing ability).  Rocket launch, in 1956 Cochran sings their song, "Twenty Flight Rock" (in 1957, it is because 15-year-old Paul McCartney knows the chords and words to the song that an impressed John Lennon invites the young musician to join his band at the time, The Quarrymen) in The Girl Can't Help It, one of the first color rock-and-roll movies, signs a recording contract with Liberty records, in 1957, he sings "Sittin' in the Balcony" in the movie, Untamed Youth, and puts together the only studio album to be released during his lifetime, Singin' to my Baby (in 1959, as himself, he appears in his third and final film, singing "I Remember" in the Hal Roach Production of Go, Johnny, Go ... his song will be cut from the final release of the film).  1958 sees Cochran create his masterpiece of teenage angst, "Summerime Blues:"

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler
About a-workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar
Every time I call my baby, try to get a date
My boss says, "no dice son, you gotta work late"
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Well, my mom and pop told me, "son, you gotta make some money"
If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday
Well, I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick
"Well, you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick"
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations
Well, I called my congressman and he said "whoa!"
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote"
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Reaching #8 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1958, the song will be performed by a plethora of artists over the years that includes The Who (a staple of their early concerts), Blue Cheer, Brian Setzer (who will portray Cochran in the 1987 film, La Bamba), Alan Jackson (who turns it into a #1 country tune), the Beach Boys, T. Rex, Rush, and Jimi Hendrix.  

Cochran

Cochran With Jerry Capehart

Liberty Recording #55144 

At the same time, Cochran (who by now has also mastered playing piano, bass, and drums) is experimenting with multitrack recording, distortion techniques, and overdubbing in the studio, and becomes one of the first guitarist to use an unwound third string to bend notes up a whole tone.  Horrified when his good friends, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens die in a 1959 plane crash (along with the Big Bopper), Cochran days afterwards records a tribute song by DJ Tommy Dee called "Three Stars," and begins having premonitions that he might die young too, premonitions that he answers by staying in the studio instead of touring.  Bills to pay though, he decides to go out on the road with another hot rock-and-roll property, Gene Vincent (his smash is "Be-Bop-A-Lula"), and agrees to a 1960 tour of Great Britain where the pair are considered to be major stars.

The Day The Music Died - 1959

Vincent

Cochran & Vincent  

A major success (the tour of Great Britain is promoted by Larry Parnes), playing since the middle of January, the string of concert dates ends with a performance at the Bristol Hippodrome on April 16, 1960.  Gig completed and wanting to return to Southern California as quickly as possible, the men return to their rooms at the Royal Hotel, grab their stuff, and make plans to get out of Dodge as quickly as is possible ... the car support act Johnny Gentle is driving back to London already full, no trains south available until the next day, Cochran, Cochran's girlfriend, songwriter Sharon Sheeley ( a Newport Harbor High School grad and the writer of Ricky Nelson's #1 hit, "Poor Little Fool"), Vincent, and tour-manger Pat Thompkins decide to take a taxi, a Ford Consul driven by George Martin (not the man who will become famous recording The Beatles).  Setting off, Thompkins is upfront, next to the driver, and the back seat is occupied by Vincent, Cochran, and Sheeley.  Taking A4 through the town of Bath, Martin decides to use a shortcut on the outskirts of Chippenham, but traveling too fast, at 11:50 in the evening, misses the turn, and slams on the brakes to correct his course, a decision that causes him to lose control of the vehicle on a bend at Rowden Hill, spin backwards, and slam into a concrete lamp post.  Inside the vehicle, trying to protect Sheeley, Cochran wraps himself around his girlfriend and after being thrown against the ceiling of the taxi, is flung out when the rear door comes violently open.  Over in a few heartbeats, Martin and Thompkins walk away from the wreck uninjured (Martin will be found guilty of dangerous driving, fined, and sentenced to six months behind bars for failing to pay the fine ... he also forfeits his driving license, taken away, it is reinstated in 1969), Vincent has a broken collarbone, ribs, and has damaged a leg already weakened by a 1955 motorcycle accident, Sheeley is in shock with a broken pelvis, and Cochran needs immediate medical attention for his injuries to his brain.  Rushed to St. Martin's Hospital in Bath, Cochran dies at 4:10 pm on April 17, 1960.  Flown home, Cochran is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California on April 25, 1960.

Cochran & Sheeley

The Smashed Car

Headlines

Twenty-One forever, Cochran's influence lives well beyond his death.  A posthumous album is released in 1964, he is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, his song, "C'mon Everybody" hits #18 in the UK in 1988, he becomes the first person to be inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (located in Nashville, Tennessee) in 1997, Rolling Stone magazine will rank him as #84 in it's 2003 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time, his short life will be chronicled in Don't Forget Me: The Eddie Cochran Story by Julie Mundy and Darrel Higham, EMI Records will release The Very Best Of Eddie Cochran in 2008, and in 2010, the mayor of Bell Gardens, will declare October 3rd, the anniversary of the musician's birth, to be "Eddie Cochran Day."  And of course there is also the influence he has on a host of artists that have covered his songs: U2, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, the Beach Boys, the Stray Cats, Led Zeppelin, George Thorogood, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, the White Stripes, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Simple Minds, Tom Petty, Van Halen, and so many others.  Rest in peace, Eddie!   

Memorial At Crash Site

Forest Lawn In Cypress, California 

Cochran