Eddie Cochran - the Beginning
19/09/2007
Start at the beginning, she said, and end at the end. The beginning? Well, that was Bill Hayley, wasn't it? And he was awful. Well, Elvis then. But he wasn't much better. Oh, I know, that day-the-music-died feller, Buddy Holly, the Crickets guy.


Eddie Cochran

Ah, but that's a mistake, you see. Buddy was great, yes, but he had a friend who was the real prophet of the new rock n roll age to come. He was the one with the pent up frustration and rebellion against the narrow vision of his time, he was the one who gave us a glimpse of the revolution about to explode in the sixties. Buddy may have been the epitome of rockabilly stars but Eddie was the one who pointed the way forward - next to Buddy, he was raw, earthy and exciting. Eddie Cochran was the real beginning of it all.

Listen to these YouTube videos before they get around to taking them off; in them you'll hear the link between the rock of the fifties, all teenage angst and hormones, and the more purposeful rebellion of the sixties, still incoherent in its frustration but reaching for something better than we knew. It is no wonder that Eddie is sometimes known as the first punk rocker.

C'mon Everybody

Summertime Blues

School Days

Somethin' Else

Nervous Breakdown

Eddie was taken from us in 1960, just at the moment when his career hovered at the edge of breakthrough, yet his influence lives on. If there was a beginning, Eddie was it.

MusicGeeks

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