Eddie Cochran dies, and Gene Vincent is injured, in a UK car accident
Eddie Cochran the man behind Summertime Blues and Cmon Everybody was killed on this day in 1960 when the taxi carrying him from a show in Bristol England crashed en route to the airport in London where he was to catch a flight back home to the United States.A raw and exciting rocker with a cocky rebellious image Eddie Cochran was very different from the polished and packaged idols being heavily marketed to American teenagers in the years between the rise of Elvis Presley and the arrival of the Beatles.And while he may have faded from popular memory in the years since his tragic and early death his biggest hits have not.Cochran was on a triumphant concert tour of Britain in the spring of 1960a tour that had been extended 10 weeks beyond its scheduled run due to intense demand for tickets.
In America a tamer brand of pop was in fashion exemplified by the likes of Frankie Avalon Paul Anka and Bobby Darin.In England however harder-edged rhythm-and-blues artists and rock-and-rollers like Eddie Cochran and his tour-mate Gene Vincent (of Be Bop a Lula fame) were far more popular.Theirs was the kind of music that the future members of the British Invasion were listening to in the late 50s and early 60s.
It was Be Bop A Lula in fact that John Lennon was playing at the 1957 garden party where he first met Paul McCartney and it was Cochrans Twenty Flight Rock that Paul taught John to play that same afternoon shortly after being invited to join Lennons Quarrymen.At least one Beatle George Harrison saw Eddie Cochran in Liverpool during his final tour and both his guitar-playing and his stage persona made a strong impression.He was standing at the microphone and as he started to talk he put his two hands through his hair pushing it back Harrison later recalled.
And a girl one lone voice screamed out Oh Eddie and he coolly murmured into the mike Hi honey.I thought Yes Thats itrock and rollGene Vincent was traveling alongside Eddie Cochran in the cab to London after what would prove to be Cochrans final performance.Tour manager Patrick Thompkins and Eddies fiance songwriter Sharon Seeley (she wrote Ricky Nelsons 1 hit Poor Little Fool) were also in the Ford Consul that was later estimated to have been traveling in excess of 60 mph through a dark and winding section of the two-lane A4 in the village of Chippenham.
Gene Vincent would break a leg and walk with a limp for the rest of his life but beyond that the only serious injuries among the passengers were Eddie Cochrans.Having been thrown from the vehicle when it smashed into a light post Cochran sustained a serious head injury.He died at hospital in Bath in the early hours of April 17 1960.
