Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon (14 page)
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Authors: Pamela Des Barres
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Capehart, who was ten years Eddie’s senior, tells me that Eddie’s family wouldn’t sign for his station wagon. “Guess who put his name on the dotted line? Nobody in his family thought enough of their son or their brother to put their name on the dotted line for him to buy a car. So I did.”
It’s hard for me to imagine sister Gloria being so hard-hearted. Recalling how hard her baby brother had to work, she tells me that when Eddie came home from a road trip, he was beat. “He’d take about three or four days off and go up into the desert with his Buntline,” she says. Buntline? What’s that? I wonder. “A big gun,” Ed fills me in, beaming with pride. “Like Wyatt Earp.” Ah. “That poor kid,” Gloria goes on, smiling sadly. “He’d go out on these tours, you know, and work his bottom off.” Then Ed chimes in, “The band members would get paid, but Ed just didn’t get paid!” Little Ed is obviously appalled. His mother continues, “He’d come home broke. I’d feel so sorry for him, putting out all that work and not getting a penny.”
Though there wasn’t much dough on the road, it was a whole lot of fun, according to Gene Ridgio. “We were doing a show and Eddie, being his beautiful self, was entertaining like you can’t believe, and of course the girls loved him, and whether they’re with their boyfriends or not, they’re gonna show it.” Gene is gleeful as he goes on. “Well, this one young man got uptight, a typical
guy back in them days—white satin vest, white pants, and white buck saddle shoes. After the show we’re packing up, this fellow shows up and says, ‘Hey Cochran!’—I don’t know if you can print this—‘I’m gonna kick the livin’ shit outta you!’ And Eddie says, ‘What?’ In other words, ‘I don’t even know you, sir.’ But he persists on being the bully and Eddie says, ‘You mean to tell me that you and I cannot discuss this thing and resolve it?’ And this guy says, ‘No way, man, I want a piece of you right now!,’ so Eddie says, ‘Well, I guess I’m just gonna have to kill you.’ With that, Eddie draws his Buntline .45—not pointing at the guy, pointing to the right of him—and fires, and he has a blank in it! The guy stands there in the snow and pees his pants. The snow around his shoes is getting yellow!” Gene is delighted, right there with Eddie again, reliving the moment one more time. “The flame shot out of Eddie’s Buntline and just scared the hell outta that guy.”
guy back in them days—white satin vest, white pants, and white buck saddle shoes. After the show we’re packing up, this fellow shows up and says, ‘Hey Cochran!’—I don’t know if you can print this—‘I’m gonna kick the livin’ shit outta you!’ And Eddie says, ‘What?’ In other words, ‘I don’t even know you, sir.’ But he persists on being the bully and Eddie says, ‘You mean to tell me that you and I cannot discuss this thing and resolve it?’ And this guy says, ‘No way, man, I want a piece of you right now!,’ so Eddie says, ‘Well, I guess I’m just gonna have to kill you.’ With that, Eddie draws his Buntline .45—not pointing at the guy, pointing to the right of him—and fires, and he has a blank in it! The guy stands there in the snow and pees his pants. The snow around his shoes is getting yellow!” Gene is delighted, right there with Eddie again, reliving the moment one more time. “The flame shot out of Eddie’s Buntline and just scared the hell outta that guy.”
In March 1958 Eddie went to Capehart’s pad in Hollywood to go through material for the next day’s session. He had a riff running around in his head that he just couldn’t shake. He played it for Jerry and, in less than an hour, “Summertime Blues,” three minutes of pure, shining, unadulterated rock-and-roll majesty, was finished. The song spoke for all the teenagers who felt they were being bugged, hassled, and bossed around. Eddie Cochran understood their plight: how hard it was to hold a job, to get a car, to take your girl on a date. “Sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do but there ain’t no cure …” You know the rest.
A lot more touring in the Ford wagon followed, and in January 1959 his second single, the blazing “C’mon Everybody!” hit the charts, inviting all of teen America to come to Eddie’s party. As the record climbed the charts, he started filming his third movie,
Go Johnny Go!,
another classic gem of supreme rock-schlock in which he crooned “Teenage Heaven.” Ironically, he had to drop out of the Winter Dance Party Tour with Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and his close pal Buddy Holly due to his film schedule. On February 3 their plane crashed in a field near Mason City, Iowa, and a big chunk of the music died. Deeply affected by the loss of Holly, Eddie recorded a tribute song, “Three Stars,” intending to donate the royalties to the three stars’ families, but due to some legalese with Liberty Records, the song wasn’t even released until many years after his own death.
Go Johnny Go!,
another classic gem of supreme rock-schlock in which he crooned “Teenage Heaven.” Ironically, he had to drop out of the Winter Dance Party Tour with Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and his close pal Buddy Holly due to his film schedule. On February 3 their plane crashed in a field near Mason City, Iowa, and a big chunk of the music died. Deeply affected by the loss of Holly, Eddie recorded a tribute song, “Three Stars,” intending to donate the royalties to the three stars’ families, but due to some legalese with Liberty Records, the song wasn’t even released until many years after his own death.
Though the success of “C’mon Everybody!” was making Eddie a bona fide teen idol, the panting girls and chartbusters weren’t swelling his head. Said his sister Pat, “He loved the success and adulation, but his feet were on the ground. He never lost sight of who he was.” I ask her about Eddie’s teasing nature and she laughs a little. “Oh yes, he used to drive me crazy,” she admits. “When I got married, we came out of the church, and he and his friend David really did a job on the car! I jumped in the front seat and landed in a pile of cornflakes. There were cornflakes everywhere! It was crunch, crunch,
crunch!” I can tell the memory is bittersweet for Pat. “Eddie was six years younger than me. He was our baby doll. He was our baby. You know, Pam,” she says with a catch in her voice, “it really took a lot out of our little mother when he died. I wish you could have met her.”
crunch!” I can tell the memory is bittersweet for Pat. “Eddie was six years younger than me. He was our baby doll. He was our baby. You know, Pam,” she says with a catch in her voice, “it really took a lot out of our little mother when he died. I wish you could have met her.”
Jerry Capehart paints a very different picture of Alice Cochran—and a strikingly different picture of the Cochran family baby doll. “Eddie couldn’t stand to go home,” he says insistently. “When he was home he was there basically just to please his mother. He was still a kid, after all, but Eddie despised going home. He grew up with the refrigerator door always being opened with a cold beer inside. Eddie died an alcoholic.” I have never heard that Eddie had an alcohol problem. He liked a little beer, right? I ask Jerry. “No, what Eddie really liked were Black Russians.”
In March 1959, when “C’mon Everybody!” hit the charts in England, Eddie wrote a “personal” message to his fans in a teen magazine, letting them know a little bit about his “private” life. As the youngest of five children, Eddie said that made him the “baby” of the family, adding, “It’s just something I have to accept although I’m not really the type of guy that likes to be babied.” Eddie told his fans about his passion for shooting and gun collecting, stating he was “unlike most youngsters of today” because his favorite car wasn’t a “sports model or a convertible” but a station wagon. “No doubt that fits in with the rest of my character, for I like to dress very casually and I’m not too happy in crowds.” Eddie ended his message by saying that he hoped to “fix a trip” to England and “say hello” to every one of his fans in person.
The rest of 1959 seemed like one long tour for Eddie. He had become wary of flying, and the nonstop road travel, playing jukebox operators’ conventions, sock hops, and roller rinks in the toolies, was starting to make him crazy. He had pretty much decided to concentrate on writing and producing rather than spending so much time with his feet up on the dashboard. And according to Sharon Sheeley, Eddie was ready to settle down.
The Cochran family has tangled-up feelings about Sheeley, a songwriter introduced to Eddie by his friend Phil Everly. “I know Sharon Sheeley says they were engaged,” says sister Pat, “but I don’t think so. The magazines say he sent for her to come to England, but I find that hard to believe.” Bill concurs. “I talked to Ed right before he went to England, we were pretty close, and I’m afraid that isn’t true. She says some things that are pretty fantastic, but that goes with the territory, with the entertainment business. I don’t feel bad about it. If she wants to think it happened, that’s okay.” Gloria says that Eddie wouldn’t have married Sharon. “Ed liked a home life and he liked to have a woman wait on him hand and foot. He liked to have a woman cook. Mother did it for him, I did it for him. He liked an old-fashioned girl.” Gloria then tells me that she believes Eddie was in love with blond starlet Connie Stevens. (Maybe she cooked up a pretty fair dish of beans and corn bread in between takes!)
When I visit Sharon to do the interview, I like her right away. A true eccentric, she laughs wildly, shares willingly, has a zany sense of humor, and a cute little lisp. And I totally identify with her adoration for the long-gone rock boy-god. Black-and-white photos of Eddie adorn her apartment, and once again I’m struck how Eddie Cochran will always be twenty-one while the people who loved him just keep having birthdays. Thirty-eight years ago burgeoning songwriter Sharon Sheeley fell in love for the first time, and she fell hard. After seeing his picture on the poster of
The Girl Can’t Help It,
she “set out to get him,” spending the next two years “chasing Eddie Cochran.” When her songwriting started taking off (Rick Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool,” Brenda Lee’s “Dum Dum,” etc.), she signed with Eddie’s manager, thus securing herself a constant spot in his presence. Eddie treated her “like a kid sister” for a couple of years, even though she spent all her money on cute outfits and bleached her hair platinum blond so he might pay her some romantic attention. It was when she finally scrubbed off her makeup, put her hair in braids, and arrived at one of his parties in a pair of Levi’s that he took notice. She says he professed his love and asked her to marry him on a New Year’s Eve night in New York City.
The Girl Can’t Help It,
she “set out to get him,” spending the next two years “chasing Eddie Cochran.” When her songwriting started taking off (Rick Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool,” Brenda Lee’s “Dum Dum,” etc.), she signed with Eddie’s manager, thus securing herself a constant spot in his presence. Eddie treated her “like a kid sister” for a couple of years, even though she spent all her money on cute outfits and bleached her hair platinum blond so he might pay her some romantic attention. It was when she finally scrubbed off her makeup, put her hair in braids, and arrived at one of his parties in a pair of Levi’s that he took notice. She says he professed his love and asked her to marry him on a New Year’s Eve night in New York City.
Capehart says he was there and does not believe Sharon’s story. “It’s so ludicrous I can’t even begin to tell you.” I ask Jerry if he thinks Eddie was wild on the road. “He sure was! As a matter of fact, he never even had to leave his room. They came to him. But he did care about a little redheaded Irish girl in New York,” he says. “Eddie probably fathered two different children. One would be with the Irish girl, and the other was with a girl in Pittsburgh. Hey!” he says as an afterthought. “If there’s anybody out there who thinks that Eddie was your father, I’d like for you to come forward! Tell them that Jerry asked you to print that.”
“Somethin’ Else,” Eddie’s next single, co-penned with Sharon Sheeley, didn’t get too high on the U.S. charts, but over in England it was a smash. British kids were caught in the fervent grip of rock-and-roll fever and were especially mad for American rockers. Even though Eddie had decided not to travel as much, he couldn’t very well say no to a five-week British tour with fellow rocker Gene Vincent. After another session at Gold Star in Hollywood, during which he recorded a tender heartbreaker eerily titled “Three Steps to Heaven,” he left for England on January 9, 1960.
Eddie Cochran made headlines all over Britain. Girls were fainting. There was chaos everywhere he went and, though he wasn’t used to it, Eddie enjoyed the attention. He even went so far as to have “breakaway” suits made because of the frenzied female attacks on his person. But Eddie’s humility was in full force when promoters suggested he take over Gene Vincent’s headline spot. “The people wanted more to see Ed, but Gene was still the headliner,” Little Ed tells me with satisfaction. “But Ed wouldn’t take top billing.”
A young, unknown guitarist, George Harrison, followed him from Ipswich
to Wembley, studying his fingers. “Eddie was an innovator of rock and roll,” Gene Ridgio told me with pride. “The way he strung his guitar [was] different than anybody. The two bottom strings were the same so that he could flex them, and they were tuned different.” When I asked Gene what made Eddie think he could do that, he said, “Honey, I don’t know.”
to Wembley, studying his fingers. “Eddie was an innovator of rock and roll,” Gene Ridgio told me with pride. “The way he strung his guitar [was] different than anybody. The two bottom strings were the same so that he could flex them, and they were tuned different.” When I asked Gene what made Eddie think he could do that, he said, “Honey, I don’t know.”
The tour proved so wildly successful, the duo was offered an additional ten-week stint to begin two weeks later. Eddie accepted, then called his mother to tell her the news. “After this,” he told her, “I won’t have to go on the road anymore.”
At the end of March Sharon went to visit Eddie in England: Her twentieth birthday was coming up and she wanted to celebrate with him. She also wanted to see him play for passels of adoring fans. She got there just in time to be with him when he died. Legendary stories have grown up around Eddie Cochran’s gravestone like so many tangled weeds. Capehart says that Duane Eddy’s manager, who was staying in Eddie’s hotel in England, told him Eddie ran out of his room in the middle of the night screaming, “I’m gonna die and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.” Sharon told me she found him in his room playing Buddy Holly records, which was odd because listening to Buddy had always been too painful for Eddie. Apparently he spoke of how he might be seeing his friend Buddy sometime real soon—he had a lick he wanted to show him. Capehart recalled Eddie telling him that he had a feeling he wasn’t going to live very long. And that last song—“Three Steps to Heaven.” When he turned up late for the session to face a pissed-off Capehart, Eddie said, “Who’s gonna care? It doesn’t matter, none of it does.”
Sharon and I are looking at a thirty-five-year-old black-and-white photograph of a ruined British taxicab. “I sat right there,” she says, obviously hurting. “If he had not pulled me over his lap … That’s why he died, you know. The autopsy broke my heart. He pulled me over,” she says, still amazed at the boy’s gallantry. “But of course he would.” We come to a shot of Sharon leaving the hospital. “Poor little honey,” she says. “Look at me. Dead eyes.” Tell me about it, I say gently. “The Virgin Mary came to me and said, ‘You will suffer greatly,’ and I didn’t understand. I knocked on Gene’s door and said, ‘What are you guys doing in there?’ Eddie woke up … . You have to understand, all that time in England we didn’t sleep together. You didn’t know that, did you? We had separate hotel rooms.” Perhaps it was the uptight times? I suggest. “It was
him,”
she insists. “I begged Eddie, ‘What’s wrong with me? Don’t you want to make love to me?’ I used to dream about it every day of my life. I was a virgin, I was waiting for this big seduction. He told me he loved me. The most beautiful line, which nobody has ever heard but you, Pamela: ‘Not tonight. You remind me of a beautiful piece of glass balanced on the edge of a table. If I touch it, it will shatter … .’ Wouldn’t you love to have somebody like that?” Her eyes shine with the memory.
him,”
she insists. “I begged Eddie, ‘What’s wrong with me? Don’t you want to make love to me?’ I used to dream about it every day of my life. I was a virgin, I was waiting for this big seduction. He told me he loved me. The most beautiful line, which nobody has ever heard but you, Pamela: ‘Not tonight. You remind me of a beautiful piece of glass balanced on the edge of a table. If I touch it, it will shatter … .’ Wouldn’t you love to have somebody like that?” Her eyes shine with the memory.
The British tour came to an end at the Hippodrome in Bristol, and instead
of taking the train, Gene, Eddie, Sharon, and tour manager Pat Thomkins decided to share a cab to the airport. It was 10:45. The next morning they would fly home to Los Angeles to spend Easter Sunday with their families. On the A4 in Bath, the Ford Consul taxi, driven by nineteen-year-old George Martin, skidded backward into a roadside lamppost and crashed. Wreckage was scattered two hundred yards up the road.
of taking the train, Gene, Eddie, Sharon, and tour manager Pat Thomkins decided to share a cab to the airport. It was 10:45. The next morning they would fly home to Los Angeles to spend Easter Sunday with their families. On the A4 in Bath, the Ford Consul taxi, driven by nineteen-year-old George Martin, skidded backward into a roadside lamppost and crashed. Wreckage was scattered two hundred yards up the road.
Sharon says that she and Eddie had been discussing their upcoming wedding as they headed for London that night. “He was saying, ‘Is so-and-so going to come?’ and I’d say, ‘Yes.’ We had talked to both of our mothers and he was singing, ‘California, here I come, right back where I started from! Whoa! I’m gonna kiss the ground when that plane lands!’ I asked the driver, ‘Don’t you think we’re going too fast?’ and all I remember is feeling like I was on a tilt-a-whirl , everything was spinning. I remember hearing this horrible scream, and thinking, Oh my God, stop that scream, then realizing it was coming out of my own throat. The next thing I remember is waking up in a cow pasture. I couldn’t move because my back was broken in four places, my neck in three. The back of my head was split wide open. I just kept thinking it had to be a dream. It was a second after midnight. I couldn’t move and I kept screaming, ‘Where’s Eddie?! Where’s Eddie!?’ Gene Vincent crawled over to me and said, ‘He’s fine, he’s in the car having a cigarette.’ And I knew. I knew Eddie would not be sitting in the car while I’m lying there bleeding to death, and with that I just went out.” On impact Eddie’s Gretsch flew out of the trunk and rested next to him in the pasture, his hand touching the frets.
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