Eddie Cochran, Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer

I got rid of my 45rpm record collection from the 50s a few years ago. Katie and I were getting ready to move and we were pairing down our stuff. I didn’t own a record player, so I had no way of playing vinyl records. Besides, if I wanted to hear these early rock ‘n’ roll songs, I could easily stream them. It all made perfect sense at the time. The guy in the used record shop hastily flipped through my cherished stack of musical gems as if he were shuffling a deck of cards. When he got to the last one, he looked up at me and said, “They’re not worth anything”. I couldn’t believe it. I pointed out that some of these records were the beginning of a musical revolution that’s still going on today. “Nobody wants 45s and nobody’s buying them.” He pushed my pre-teen record collection across the counter as if it were garbage. I picked a record off the stack and held it in front of his face. “Here’s the original ‘Summertime Blues’ by Eddy Cochran.” “Never heard of him,” he replied. To jar his memory I added, “The Who covered it on their ‘Live at Leeds’ album”. The guy just shook his head back and forth. “And they performed it in the Woodstock documentary” I added. “Didn’t see it.” I could tell he’d had enough of me. He turned away to do something behind the counter, so I took my stack of records and left. I think he was probably a Millennial. I dropped my records off at Goodwill on my way home. I hoped some baby boomer who still had a record player and an adapter for 45s would discover them. As a pre-teen white boy growing up in the Midwest suburbs in the 1950s, the impact of early rock ‘n’ roll was huge. I think it was one of those “you had to have been there” times. Before the rock ‘n’ roll revolution, some of the popular songs were “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” by Bill Hayes, “Autumn Leaves” an instrumental by Roger Williams, “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Tweedle Dee” by Georgia Gibbs and “Moments to Remember” by the Four Lads. Then in the summer of 1956, Elvis burst onto the radio like a lightning bolt. I immediately bought the 45, “Hound Dog” side-A and “Don’t be Cruel” side-B. In the still segregated 50s, the radio stations in the Midwest did not play the black “race” music of the time. A young Elvis listened to this music on the radio and was able to see live performances after his parents moved to Memphis when he was 13. When Elvis began playing the guitar and singing, he blended this “race” music or what we now call rhythm and blues and Gospel with the hillbilly and western music of the time to create Rock-a-Billy which was the earliest form of rock ‘n’ roll. A host of young musicians imitated Elvis, later finding their own voices in this new genre, and none of them did it better than Eddie Cochran. Eddie was already a working musician by the time he became aware of Elvis. At age 14, he bought a blond Gibson cutaway acoustic guitar and modified it with an electric pick-up. The guitar became his passion. He taught himself to play blues guitar as well as the finger picking styles of Chet Atkins and Merl Travis. In 1953 his family moved to southern California from Minnesota. That summer, Eddie and a high school friend named Chuck, experimented with recording techniques on a two-track tape recorder. They fooled around with over-dubbing, multi-track recording and distortion techniques. Eddie became an extremely proficient guitar player and he also learned to play the piano, bass, and drums. Eddie dropped out of high school in 1955 when he was 16 to pursue a music career. He teamed up with another musician named Hank Cochran, who was no relation to him, but they called themselves the Cochran Brothers. They played pure country like the musicians on the Grand Ole Opry and performed at club gigs and dance halls. They even landed a few appearances on local TV shows. The Cochran Brothers cut a couple records at a local Hollywood studio, but didn’t have much record sales. Their songs featured their tight harmonies and Eddie’s guitar prowess, which later helped their careers. They started touring the south and landed an appearance on a Dallas TV and radio show called Big D Jamboree. According to Bobby Cochran, Eddie’s nephew, the show was broadcast from the Dallas Sportatorium, a huge “airplane hangar size Quonset hut.” According to Bobby, Eddie and Hank noticed a police officer standing to the side “covered in scratches”. They asked him about it and he told them some kid by the name of Elvis Presley had played there a few nights before and he explained “…all them gals nearly scratched us to pieces tryin’ to get to him.” After their tour was over, Eddie and Hank went to Memphis where they witnessed a Presley gig. “They were knocked out. When charismatic Elvis hit the stage, it was dynamic, like magic. The young women in the audience went wild.” Eddie believed they were witnessing “the world’s next musical hero.” After the concert they went backstage and briefly talked with Elvis. Eddie began to incorporate Elvis’s style into the duo’s performances. The next year he quit the Cochran Brothers and teamed up with Jerry Capehart who became his co-songwriter and manager. Eddie became a solo act, playing and singing strictly rock ‘n’ roll, which was just starting to take off around the country. Songs like “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets, “Maybellene by Chuck Berry and “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard, began to get airplay around the country. Eddie’s first successful song was “Twenty Flight Rock” written by Ned Fairchild. He recorded it in 1956 and performed it in a cameo appearance in the movie “The Girl Can’t Help It” starring Jayne Mansfield. In 1957, a 15-year-old Paul McCartney performed the song for 16-year-old John Lennon when he auditioned for Lennon’s band the Quarrymen. Soon after his movie appearance Eddie was signed to Liberty records and recorded “Sittin’ in the Balcony” which became a top twenty hit and rose to #18 on the Billboard chart. He “lip-synced” the song on Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show. “Summertime Blues” was written by Eddie and Jerry and released in August of 1958. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard top 100. Recorded in Hollywood at Gold Star Recording Studios, Cochran played all the guitar parts and sang both the high and low parts of the song. He and his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley did the hand clapping in the background. The low voice in the song was meant as a tribute to the black character of Kingfish on the Amos and Andy show. Connie “Guybo” Smith played the electric bass and Earl Palmer played drums. Eddie’s career took off and he spent the rest of his short life playing his music in rock ‘n’ roll concerts around the US and in England. He died in a car crash in England on April 17, 1960. He was 22 years old. He was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Summertime Blues has been recorded many times over the years by a variety of artists. Alan Jackson had a #1 hit, Buck Owens recorded it and Brian Setzer’s cover was in the movie “La Bamba”. The Who made it a staple in their concerts and gave the song new life. But Eddie’s version even today sounds great, a perfect example of early rock ‘n’ roll. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and ranked #77 on the list of greatest Guitar tracks by Q magazine. It is #73 on Rolling Stone magazines greatest 500 songs of all time and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum lists it as one of the songs that shaped rock ‘n’ roll along with his song “C’mon Everybody”.

At the Hop

 

One of my favorite early rock & roll songs is “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors. It was released in June of 1957 when I was nine years old. What I love about the song is the blending of the Doo Wop harmonies and progression with early rock & roll that Elvis most famously popularized.

The original group consisted of Danny Rapp, the lead singer, Dave White, 1^st tenor, Frank Moffei, 2^nd tenor, and Joe Terranova (who later changed his last name to Terry) baritone. The group got together in 1955 when they were classmates at John Bartrum High School in Philadelphia. They called themselves the Juvenaires. Harmonizing in the Doo Wop style, they performed at school functions and local events in the area.

Doo Wop music originated in the Black communities of the major cities in America in the 1940s and became widespread in the early 50s.  Young black men got together and harmonized in the style of the Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots and Barber shop quartets. They practiced on street corners and under bridges and areas that had good acoustics. The Italian youth picked up on it and formed their own groups, the most famous example being Dion and the Belmonts who were early rock & roll pioneers.

According to Joe Terry in a 2010 interview, one day the Juvenaires were practicing on the street corner and a young man from their neighborhood, the projects in South Phillie, named John Medora, walked up to them and said “You guys are pretty good. I’d like to take you to the guy who recorded me.” At that time Medora was an up-and-coming rock & roll singer and song writer. Earlier that year, he cut a record on the Singular label, owned and managed by Artie Singer. The song written by Singer was called “Be My Girl” and recorded under the name Johnny Madara.

Artie Singer started out as a bass player, playing with some of the big bands on the radio and on a TV show called Paul Whiteman’s Goodyear Review. He and his brother Harold became vocal coaches, and they had some famous students including Danny Kaye, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker and Al Martino.

David White was the song writer for the Juvenaires. He and Medora wrote a song called, “Do the Bop”. Medora took the Juvenaires to Singer and Artie liked a couple of their songs. They recorded, “Do the Bop” and “Sometimes When I’m All Alone”. Medora sang lead with the Juvenaires backing him with their vocal harmonies.

Singer suggested they take the record to a local DJ, Dick Clark. In addition to being a radio DJ, in July 1956 Clark took over a local television show called Bandstand. The original host, Bob Horn, was fired following a drunk driving arrest. It was a half hour show where they played current records and the kids danced. Clark told the group that he liked the song “Do the Bop”, but “the Bop” was a dance that was on its way out. He said these dances went out of fashion very quickly and suggested changing the song from “let’s all do the Bop” to “let’s go to the Hop”.  He told them “Record Hops are going to be around for a long time.”

According to Joe Terry, the group went back home and rewrote the song. Clark also suggested they change their name from the “Juvenaires” to “the Juniors”. So, they re-recorded the song with Danny Rapp singing lead and under their new name, Danny and the Juniors.

According to Singer, Clark agreed to play the record if he got half of the proceeds, which was a common practice and not illegal at the time. In 1960 the Payola hearings took place, and it became illegal for DJs to demand a cut of the profits. Clark sold his share in the song just prior to the new law going into effect and did not continue the practice after that. Singer said in an interview that he didn’t like the financial arrangement with Clark but always credited Clark with launching his music career. The song became a local hit in the summer of 1957.

In December Clark called the group because he needed a substitute band on Bandstand. The TV show, now renamed American Bandstand, had recently expanded to national coverage on ABC. Danny and the Juniors lip-synced the song on the show and for the first time were seen all across the Country. ABC/Paramount bought the master recording in January of ‘58 and it became a national hit reaching #1 in the US and Canada and #3 in the UK. It also made it onto the Country and the Rhythm and Blues charts. It remained #1 for 7 weeks, breaking a record for vocal groups.

Danny and the Juniors followed up the song with “Rock and Roll is here to Stay” which went to # 19 on the Billboard top 100 and #16 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. It became an anthem for rock & roll at the time. It sounds very similar to “At the Hop”, and in my opinion is not as good.

In 1969 Sha Na Na performed “At the Hop” at the Woodstock festival and in 1973, George Lucas put it in the soundtrack of his movie American Graffiti. In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it is on the list of the 500 songs that shaped Rock & Roll.