Eddie Cochran

Born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, Cochran's family moved to the West Coast in the late 1940s, where Eddie began playing guitar and doing session work. He also teamed up with Hank Cochran, singing as The Cochran Brothers, though they were not related.

About this time Eddie met producer and writer Jerry Capehart and together they began a fruitful partnership, beginning with Eddie's first solo single, Skinny Jim, which was cut for a local label called Crest. Thanks to Capehart, Liberty Records heard and signed Eddie Cochran in 1957.

Eddie developed a huge following in Europe, as did Gene Vincent. So a tour of the UK together in 1960 represented the peak of their acceptance on the road. On April 17 - while driving to London for a flight back to Los Angeles after a riotously successful British tour - Cochran and Vincent were involved in a car accident on the A4 (Great West Road) near Chippenham, Wiltshire. Cochran's fiancée Sharon Sheeley, and the car's driver (a man called George Martin!) were injured in the crash, as was Vincent, but Cochran was thrown through the windscreen when the car careered into a lamp post after a tyre blow-out. 

He was taken by ambulance to Bath Hospital but died without regaining consciousness. One of the policemen attending the event was one David Harman (Later Dave Dee of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick and Tich).