Sharon Sheeley had this to say about the fateful drive: “For the whole journey, I just sat there waiting … waiting for that car to crash. He quickly spun around and tried to make up for lost time. According to Hal Carter, Pat Thompkins’ confidante and co-tour manager, the driver took a shortcut and ended up going the wrong way. There was no major motorway between Bristol and London in 1960, so they took the old A4. Cochran, Sheeley, and Vincent were in the back with Eddie in the middle. George Martin was the driver of the Ford Consul and tour Manager Pat Thompkins sat in the passenger seat. Although none of their flights were until the following day, they were itching to get on their way … especially Eddie. Cochran, Sheeley, and Vincent decided to take a car service. Johnny Gentle, the opening act, drove back to London, but his car was full. They were all headed to Heathrow Airport, when the trains quit running early because of the Easter holiday. Vincent was scheduled to perform a series of concerts in France, as Cochran and Sheeley were flying back to Los Angeles. The final show before the tour hiatus was April 16 at the Bristol Hippodrome. As the day approached, the dark cloud began to lift. He was flying home to Los Angeles for 10 days to fulfill a recording obligation … and for a little rest and relaxation. On April 17, the increasingly morbid and despondent Cochran was getting a break. Sheeley finally asked, “Doesn’t it upset you hearing Buddy this way?” Cochran replied, “Oh no, because I’ll be seeing him soon.”
Soon after her arrival, Cochran asked Sheeley to go the record store and buy every Buddy Holly record. He visited fortune tellers, desperate to know when he would die. He became increasingly convinced that he was supposed to have died with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. By some accounts, he advanced beyond alcohol and was abusing uppers and downers. When Sheeley arrived, she found a severely depressed Cochran. She joined him at the start of April so that she could celebrate her 20 th birthday with him on the April 4. He finally called Sharon Sheeley, his fiancée, and implored her to join him for the remainder of the first half of their tour. In later photos, he looked bloated and tired, but his performances were still top notch. Cochran, never one to shy away from a drink, began consuming as much as two fifths of whiskey a day. The deaths of his good friends Holly and Valens still weighed heavy on Cochran, as he feared a similar fate awaited him. He would talk to his mum for hours on the phone and these were on their hotel bill, so I had to clear them up,” said Hal Carter, one of the tour managers. He missed his family and especially his mum. “Ed was so homesick and desperate to get back. England was starstruck by the Americans and treated them like royalty.ĭue to popular demand, the tour was extended, and Cochran found himself increasingly homesick. His black leather outfits enamored the men in the audience. He hypnotized them with his guitar theatrics.
Cochran bowled them over with his California good looks - he was blue-eyed and blond-haired. The English youth were hungry for rebellious music. For all intents and purposes, Cochran was still on the rise.īeginning in 1957, Cochran had a handful of moderate hits that ranged from crooner teenage pop like “Sitting in the Balcony” to straight-ahead rockabilly like “Twenty Flight Rock.” In 1959, he leapt to international stardom on the polyrhythmic and acoustic guitar-driven rockers “Summertime Blues” and “C’mon Everybody.” After years as a session player, he was poised to break out as the next big thing. The tour exceeded all expectations. Vincent was a waning rock star, but he could still draw a crowd. Frank Sinatra once again topped the charts. On January 10, 1960, Eddie Cochran landed in England for a co-headlining tour with the wild man, Gene Vincent.
Elvis Presley cleaned up his act for a shot in Hollywood. The previous year, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper - three of the genre's biggest marquee names - died in a plane crash. This month: Eddie Cochran.Īt the beginning of 1960, rock ‘n' roll’s detractors appeared correct: It was a flash-in-the-pan fad. In Memoriam will spotlight influential musicians that are fading from the collective conscious. So often, one giant is memorialized in their field while the others are displaced to historical footnotes. Welcome back to In Memoriam, a monthly series that chronicles Americana legends.
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