WORDS BY RANDY FOX
When Eddie Cochran’s family moved to California in 1952, his parents had no idea they were placing their son on the road to becoming a rock’n’roll legend. Los Angeles and its greater metropolitan area was the proverbial land of opportunity in the 1950s. As the United States’ economy surged in the post-war years, Southern California’s industrial base grew exponentially and attracted workers from around the country. Unlike their predecessors from the 1930s Dustbowl diaspora, migrants from the Southern and Mid-Western US were greeted with high-paying jobs.
One side effect of the booming economy was an explosion of talent in Southern California’s local music scene. In LA proper, African-American nightclubs were filled with jazz cats and blues honkers and shouters, laying down the grooves every night. In the many white suburbs surrounding LA and up through California’s Central Valley, well-paid workers with Southern or Southwestern roots packed honky tonks and dance halls, enjoying beer, bright lights and country music.