A Day Of Death & The Birth Of A Song- Summertime Blues

On this date in 1960, at about 11:50 p.m., while on tour in the United Kingdom, 21-year-old Eddie Cochran died in a traffic accident in a taxi (a Ford Consul, not, as widely quoted, a London Hackney carriage) traveling through Chippenham, Wiltshire, England on the A4. The taxi crashed into a lamp post on Rowden Hill, where a plaque now commemorates the event (no other car was involved). He was taken to St. Martin's Hospital, Bath, but died at 4:10 p.m. the following day.

So who was Eddie Cochran? Rockabilly artist Cochran’s most famous hit, "Summertime Blues" (co-written with Jerry Capehart), was an important influence on music in the late 1950s, both lyrically and musically. (The song, released on Liberty recording #55144, charted #8 on August 25, 1958.) Cochran's brief career included only a few more hits, such as "C'mon Everybody", "Somethin' Else", "My Way", "Weekend","Teenage Heaven"' "Sitting in the Balcony"' "Three Stars", "Nervous Breakdown", and his posthumous UK number one hit "Three Steps to Heaven."

Then, 34 years after Cochran’s passing, a new up and coming country artist named Alan Jackson recorded the single on his 1994 album Who I Am . It reached Number One on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart and would become one of the trademark Jackson songs. You can watch Jackson's video and Cochran's video here...