It was 60 years ago this April that Eddie Cochran was taken from us in the cruellest way possible. Aged just 21, he was one of the very first rock’n’roll stars, a blazing talent that had the swoonsome looks of a movie idol as well as a fiery spirit that helped give birth to some of the era’s most innovative and enduring songs.
Had Eddie lived, he would have celebrated his 82nd birthday this year. Who knows how his career would have unfolded had he not taken that fatal taxi ride from Bristol through Chippenham on 17 April 1960. Some Cochran fans, such as modern rockabilly hero Darrel Higham, believe that Eddie would have moved with the times and that he would have been as musically and culturally relevant at 40 – and even 80 – as he was in the fresh bloom of youth.