Eddie Cochran

Ray Edward Cochran ( KOK-rən; October 3, 1938 – April 17, 1960) was an American rock and roll musician. Cochran’s songs, such as “Twenty Flight Rock”, “Summertime Blues”, “C’mon Everybody” and “Somethin’ Else”, captured teenage frustration and desire in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. He experimented with multitrack recording, distortion techniques, and overdubbing even on his earliest singles. Cochran played the guitar, piano, bass, and drums. His image as a sharply dressed and attractive young man with a rebellious attitude epitomized the stance of the 1950s rocker, and in death he achieved iconic status.Cochran was involved with music from an early age, playing in the school band and teaching himself to play blues guitar. In 1954, Cochran formed a duo with the guitarist Hank Cochran (no relation). When they split the following year, Eddie began a songwriting career with Jerry Capehart. His first success came when he performed the song “Twenty Flight Rock” in the film The Girl Can’t Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield. Soon afterward, he signed a recording contract with Liberty Records and his first record for the label, “Sittin’ in the Balcony”, rose to number 18 on the Billboard charts.

Cochran died at the age of 21 in St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, Somerset, after a road accident in Chippenham, Wiltshire, at the end of his British tour with Gene Vincent on 16 April 1960. After they had just performed at the Bristol Hippodrome, on their way to their next venue, Vincent, Cochran and the songwriter Sharon Sheeley were involved in a high-speed traffic accident in a private-hire taxi. The other two passengers survived with major injuries, but Cochran, who had been thrown from the vehicle, suffered serious brain injuries and died the next day. While they were preparing to board their taxi, Vincent and Cochran rebuffed musician Tony Sheridan’s request to ride along with them, resulting in Sheridan’s avoiding involvement in the accident. Sheridan later became influential in the musical training of many British groups playing in Hamburg, many of whom would be instrumental in the British Invasion.

Though Cochran’s best-known songs were released during his lifetime, more of his songs were released posthumously. In 1987, Cochran was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His songs have been recorded by a wide variety of recording artists. Paul McCartney himself chose Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” as his audition piece, assured to impress John Lennon by his performance of it, which he did and was hired as a member of Lennon’s skiffle group The Quarrymen, which later was renamed The Beatles.

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