The Eddie Cochran Story

You could make such a great bio-pic of the life of Eddie Cochran (1938-1960); the one I imagine would have the same title as this post.

Why Hollywood never made such a picture (though there are a couple of documentaries) I think is because the arc of his story is similar to several others, and it would probably get lost in the shuffle before it was even released. Like James Dean,Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens, Cochran died young in an accident when his career was just starting. Their stories are so well known, and each has an angle that justifies the effort: Dean because he was a movie star and influential youth icon, Holly because of his immense (and again influential) body of work, and Valens because he was a Mexican-American trailblazer. But Cochran’s tale is just as deserving. You could justifiably cite him (even more than Elvis) as the Father of Rockabilly. Unlike Elvis, he wrote songs (some of them highly clever) and played a mean guitar. And Elvis’s extraordinary vocal gifts brought out a sort of Bing Crosby/Dean Martin aspect to his persona, whereas Cochran’s more limited singing ability restricted him to a rock and roll rasp that allowed his cool factor to remain unadulterated. Interestingly, Cochran was born and raised in the midwest and California. That hillbilly accent came from his parents, who were native Oklahomans.

In terms of quantity Cochran’s musical legacy was much greater than Valens’ though much smaller than Holly’s. His biggest hit was “Summertime Blues” (1958), which has never quite gone out of circulation. The original performance has everything to commend it, right down to a vocal reference in the song to Kingfish from Amos and Andy. The Who did a blazing cover of it on Live at Leeds and its even been used in TV commercials. Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats, who practically owed his entire existence to Cochran, played him in the 1987 Valens’ bio-pic La Bamba, and sang this song in the picture. I probably love Cochran’s 1959 tune “Somethin’ Else” with it’s hyper, stop-and-start proto-punk rhythm and its relatable lyrics, which, like “Summertime Blues” speaks to the money woes of a working class American teenager. I probably heard the Sex Pistolsversion first, and shortly afterward heard Cochran’s original version on the soundtrack to the 1982 movie Diner, which we played constantly when I was in high school. “Twenty Flight Rock” (1957) is famous as the tune Paul McCartney played for John Lennon as an audition to get into the group that became The Beatles. The Stray Cats covered “Jeanie Jeanie Jeanie” (1958, not to be confused with Little Richards‘ “Jenny Jenny”) on their debut album in 1981, also a popular favorite of my high school years. The forgettable “Sittin’ in the Balcony” (1957) was his first hit, but I am a much bigger fan of his out-of-hand rocker “Skinny Jim”, penned by John D. Loudermilk, and released the year before. Also well known is “C’mon Everybody” (1958), also covered by the Sex Pistols.

Yet another notable Cochran tune was “Three Stars”, a tribute to his colleagues Holly, Valens and The Big Bopper who all died in that plane crash in 1959. He seems to sob in the song, but that’s always sounded like a put-on to me — guess I’m a cynic. But the accident genuinely freaked him out, and justifiably so, as it happens. In 1960 he was touring England with Gene Vincent (“Be Bop a Lula”) and Tony Sheridan (who made some early records with the Beatles a few months later). Following an engagement at the Bristol Hippodrome, a car Cochran was traveling in had an accident. Cochran was thrown from the vehicle and perished of a head injury. He was only 21 years old. The driver (coincidentally named George Martin, but no relation to the Beatles’ producer) was later incarcerated for reckless driving.

It’s become a dreary exercise to speculate about what might have been in such cases. But this was a great loss, and not just to the music business. Like many teen heartthrobs of his generation, Cochran was in Hollywood movies: He’s in Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) with Jayne Mansfield,Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters et al; Untamed Youth (1957) with Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson; and Go, Johnny, Go (1959) with Alan Freed, Chuck Berry, et al, as well as numerous appearances on American Bandstand and The Dick Clark Show. As for what may have been possible without the car crash, we observe that Jerry Lee Lewis, born three years prior to Cochran, passed away only a year ago.

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous; and keep an eye out for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.