On This Day – Eddie Cochran Has The Summertime Blues, in November!
Nov 7, 2011 On This Day
On this day in 1958 the Wonderful Eddie Cochran made the UK Charts with Summertime Blues, one of the classic rock songs that has been covered by many, many artists.
Sadly, EC died just some 2 years later. He was in a taxi with Gene Vincent and his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley when it left the road at Rowden Hill, Chippenham Wiltshire, UK. It seems that Eddie threw himself over his grlfriend to stop her being thrown out of the car when the door burst open. The next day he died of head injuries in hospital.
Dave Dee (of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich & rubbish) was a police cadet at the time and taught himself to play guitar on EC’s impounded Gretsch guitar. You may well know that earlier in the tour a young Mark Field carried the same guitar to EC’s car for him. Mark Field later changed his name to Marc Bolan.
Tags: classic rock, classic rock music, eddie Cochran, gene vincent, love rock music, On This Day, real rock and blues, rock and blues, rock music, sharon sheeley, summertime blues
On This day – Be Bob a Lula
Jul 28, 2010 On This Day
On this day in 1956 Sweet Gene Vincent made his first TV appearance on the Perry Como Show. He performed Be-Bop-a-Lula which was still climbing the charts.
Be-Bop-A-Lula was written by Vincent, or his manager Sheriff Tex Davies, or Donald Graves (You pays yer money and takes yer choice) in 1955. He sang it on a radio show in Norfolk Virginia in 1956 and recorded a demo version, it came to the attention of Capitol Records who were looking for someone to rival Elvis. Rival Elvis ? Surpassed him I would have thought.
Tags: classic rock music, gene vincent, On This Day, rock and blues, rock and roll
