Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues (Town Hall Party - 1959)

Eddie Cochran - Three Steps To Heaven, BBC Documentary 1982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSr0M-xTW4

Images:
1. Eddie Cochran and Sharon Sheeley.
2. Eddie Cochran ‘We were looking for a hit that would give Eddie some identity,’ Eddie Cochran’s co-writer-manager Jerry Capehart recalled of the session that yielded ‘Summertime Blues’.
3. Eddie Cochran album Singin to My Baby

Background from {[https://eddiecochran.info/]}
A Reference in the Rock Industry
He was a celebrity, not only for his worldwide songs, but also for his ability with a guitar and his roles at the cinema. He was involved in music at an early age, and played in a school band. He experimented a lot of music genres, played a lot of instruments and sang a lot, speaking to his generation.
Because of his influence in the rock industry, he received, posthumously, his induction into the Rock Hall of Fame, the highest reward a singer-writer-compositor could ever expect. Many artists paid tribute to his work that marked the Rock.

Early Age and Career
Edward Ray Cochran, called “Eddie Cochran”, was born in October 1938, Minnesota, in the United States. Very quickly, he showed a deep interest in music, starting getting guitar lessons, playing in a school band and trying to reinterpret songs he heard on the radio.
Soon after he and his family moved outside his born state, in 1952, by age 14, he formed a band with two of his friends from junior high school, which led him to drop school in order to become a “professional musician”. He got the occasion to meet Hank Cochran, another singer which whom he has no relation (despite their name was identical) at the American Legion hall, and both decided to found the Cochran Brothers. They performed many songs over the years for the label Ekko and became famous.
Three years later, in 1955, he ran into Jerry Capehart, who happened to become his manager. At that time, Eddie started writing his own songs. That is how he decided to begin his “solo artist” career, and got, thanks to Capehart, a release label with Crest Records, in 1956. His did not waited too much for his first success: a few months after, he was asked to play his role in the movie The Girl Can’t Help It and to sing one of the movies’ song. Thanks to his “pretty face”, he was considered to be a good investment in both industries, the music and the cinema. That was only the beginning of his new reputation.
In only a year, he performed a lot of songs and appeared in two films. He was considered to be a rock and roll performer, and his style went with it. Shortly after, it was time for his international breakthrough, since he expatriated to the United Kingdom, where he was appreciated as an artist. In 1958, he released some of his top hits, like “C’mon Everybody” or “Teenage Heaven”.

Eddie Cochran was also a backup musician and producer, but it remained mostly unexploited because it appeared at the end of his career. He notably worked with Gene Vincent in 1959 and contributed his bass voice to his album.
He meets his fiancé Sharon Sheeley through Capehart, who happened to be her manager too, since the girl was also a singer. She followed him all his career to other places in the world, being his most important support. Both had relevant rewards despite their young age. However, Eddie Cochran’s reputation would be short-lived.

His Final Tour in the UK, in 1960
Despite his talent and his will to become famous, Eddie Cochran was marked by a terrific event: two friends of him, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, died in a plane crash, in 1959. This led him to depression and inward-looking attitudes. In fact, he refused several times to perform abroad, being afraid to take public transportation. Many of his close relatives said he had a sort of premonition he would die early and young. He was obsessed with this idea and disappeared from the international stage for a few months. However, he wrote a song in tribute to his friends, “Three Stars”, released in 1959 and a second time in 1966, in the UK.
Finally, and because of financial troubles, he had to accept a show in London, UK, in 1960. Ironically, his fears became true and he died in a car accident in Chippenham, Wiltshire. The taxi driver blew a tire and lost control of the vehicle. His fiancée survived, such as some of his close friends and managers. He was the only one to die that day, because of severe injuries. He was only 21 years old.
In 1964, a posthumous album was released, “My Way”, with many of his unachieved songs. Sharon Sheeley took care of that for him. Many biographies were written in his memory, and he was inducted in the Rock Hall of Fame in 1967, and recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

An Impressive Discography
Even though he was very young, Eddie Cochran has a lot of influence in the music industry, back in the 1950-1960s. The genres he played were: rock, rockabilly, country, rhymes and blues. He is considered as an inspirational musician.
His discography can easily demonstrate it since he made US codes and UK albums. Among them, there was:

Singing To My Baby (1957)
Eddie Cochran, Liberty (1959)
Summertime Blues (1966)
The Very Best of Eddie Cochran (1975)

He also released singles without albums. His most famous singles were:
Two Blue Singin’ Stars (1954)
Walkin’ Stick Boggie (1956)
Sittin’ In The Balcony (1957)
Twenty Flight Rock (1957)
Jeannie Jeannie Jeannie (1958)
Somethin’ Else (1959)
Hallelujah I Love Her So (1959)
Three Steps To Heaven (1960)
Weekend (1961)

In total, he released (alive and posthumously), 11 US albums, 11 UK albums and 20 songs (non-album). In 1988, the song “C’mon Everybody” made an impressive chart entry in the UK, with a #4. It shows his long-lasting influence in the music industry.

His notoriety led him to the cinema industry. In fact, he played his own role in two movies: The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) and Go, Johnny, Go (1959), and played a character in a Warner Bros’ movie called Untamed Youth (1957).

Cochran’s Style and Legacy
Maybe people say, and artists themselves confess it, that Cochran played an important role in their career or accession to the music industry. For example, Paul McCartney was so impressive with his realistic interpretation of Twenty Flight Rock that John Lennon invited him to be part of his band, which will become the Beatles after that. Same for the Who’s musician Pete Townshend, who performed Summertime Blues, so did Jimi Hendrix at the beginning of his career.

In a more general way, his sense for the rock (and rockabilly) was unique. He is one of the first rock and roll artists to overdub tracks, or write his own music. He was also an innovator and invented the “bend” notes that is now part of the rock industry. Many of his songs were performed by international and well-known musicians, such as Cliff Richards, Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, David Bowie, U2 or Johnny Hallyday.

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Eddie Cochran - Cherished Memories 2001 British documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ex8thOruSU

Image: Eddie Cochran wearing leather flight jacket holding electric guitar.jpg

Background from {[https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-cochran-mn [login to see] /biography]}
Artist Biography by Mark Deming

Eddie Cochran was one of the first great stars of rock & roll and an artist whose influence would far outstrip his brief career, which was cut short when he died in an auto accident in 1960. Cochran would often be cited as one of the pioneers of rockabilly, but his style was more muscular and less twangy than those of his peers, adding a bluesy accent to the music that meshed comfortably with his country-influenced melodies. Cochran was also an impressive guitar player and a songwriter young enough to understand the teenage mindset and its fascination with cars, girls, and good times, but he was also talented enough to bring his stories to life and marry them to energetic, catchy melodies. Songs like "Summertime Blues," "C'mon Everybody," "Somethin' Else," "Nervous Breakdown," and "Weekend" would live on in covers decades after Cochran passed, and his influence would be felt in artists as diverse as Bobby Fuller and the Sex Pistols. Cochran was also one of the first American rockers to tour the United Kingdom, where he would prove especially influential; when Paul McCartney first met John Lennon, the latter was impressed that the former could not only play Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," but knew the lyrics by heart.
Eddie Cochran was born on October 3, 1938 in Albert Lea, Minnesota. His parents were originally from Oklahoma, and his earliest influences were in country music. Cochran was a schoolboy when he began playing the drums, and he soon moved on to teach himself guitar and piano. In 1950, the Cochran family left the Midwest for Bell Gardens, California, and Eddie formed his first band while he was in junior high, playing hillbilly songs with his friends. After a year of high school, Cochran dropped out to become a professional musician, and in 1954 he began working with fellow country musician Hank Cochran; while the two were not related, they played out as the Cochran Brothers. The Cochran Brothers released their first single, "Mr. Fiddle" b/w "Two Blue Singin' Stars," in 1955, and the duo was modestly successful. But as rock & roll began entering public consciousness, Eddie fell under the spell of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and other early rock heroes. Though he would continue to write songs with Hank Cochran, Eddie struck out on his own and cut his first solo single, "Skinny Jim" b/w "Half Loved," in 1956. Between his casual good looks, impressive skills as a guitarist, and energetic vocal style, Cochran seemed an ideal choice to be a rock & roll star, and that same year he landed a role in the first great rock movie, The Girl Can't Help It, which also featured Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, and Jayne Mansfield. But his first chart success, 1957's "Sittin' in the Balcony" b/w "Dark Lonely Street," was more of a pop number, relatively polite, and while "Mean When I'm Mad" and "Twenty Flight Rock," released later the same year (the latter featured in The Girl Can't Help It), were in line with what would become his trademark sound, neither made the singles charts in America. Eddie's first album, Singin' to My Baby, was issued before 1957 was out, and he made a second film appearance that same year, playing a small role in the teen exploitation flick Untamed Youth, where he sang the song "Cotton Picker."

Eddie Cochran made a major breakthrough and scored his biggest hit in August 1958 with "Summertime Blues" (co-written by Cochran with Jerry Capehart, his manager), an upbeat but relatable litany of teenage gripes against the adult world. It gave Cochran his first Top Ten single, rising to number eight on the sales charts, and "C'mon Everybody," a celebration of the rock & roll house party, followed it into the Top 40 in January 1959. As Cochran became more accustomed to the recording studio, he began to experiment with overdubbing multiple guitar parts in the manner of Les Paul, and he helped out friends in the studio, playing lead guitar on sessions for honky tonk hero Skeets McDonald and adding backing vocals on the album A Gene Vincent Record Date. After the infamous February 1959 plane crash that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, which Cochran would memorialize in the song "Three Stars," Cochran became wary of extensive touring and wanted to devote more time to writing and recording. But a dip in his record sales made him reconsider for financial reasons, and as his star was rising in Great Britain, where he'd scored a handful of hit singles, he booked a tour of the United Kingdom in tandem with Gene Vincent for early 1960. The tour was a major financial success and made both stars the talk of Great Britain. However, the adventure came to a tragic end on April 17, 1960. After their concert at the Bristol Hippodrome, Cochran and Vincent hired a cab to drive them to London, where they would fly back to America. En route, the car blew a tire, sending the vehicle out of control. It smashed into a concrete post, and Cochran was killed, while Vincent and Sharon Sheeley (Cochran's steady girlfriend, a songwriter who helped pen the song "Somethin' Else" for Eddie) suffered moderate injuries.
In the wake of Cochran's death, the single "Three Steps to Heaven" went to number one on the U.K. charts and, while his passing was certainly noted by American rock fans, his posthumous career had a higher profile in Great Britain, where his death at the end of his successful tour was major news. "Summertime Blues" in particular proved to have a long life, rebounding into the U.K. charts in 1966, 1968, and 1975, and covered by Blue Cheer, the Who, the Flying Lizards, and Alan Jackson, among many others. Cochran would appear as a character in the films The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba; in the latter film, Cochran was played by Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats, who often cited him as a major influence.'
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