Search - Eddie Cochran :: Best of

Gone Too Soon

Mr. Natural | Westminster, CO United States | 02/02/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As usual, it was a particular song that led me to buy this CD. Because, you see, Eddie Cochran was before my time - his music that is. His career went from 1956 to 1960 and that was before I started listening to music.

The song I was interested in is "Summertime Blues". I've heard Blue Cheer's version from 1968 and The Who's live version from 1970, but Eddie co-wrote the song in 1958. I wanted to hear Eddie play and sing it. I was surprised how thin the recording is - just the guitar, bass and drums - and Eddie's voice. He had a strong voice and was masterful and quite innovative in his guitar playing. It's a good song and worth the price of the CD by itself.

Listening to all of the cuts, you can hear influences such as Rick Nelson, the Big Bopper and especially Elvis - all his contemporaries. There is lots of backup singing and hand clapping, but only one cut has a saxophone. His cover of a Ray Charles song on cut 13, is highly orchestrated and enjoyable. Only two cuts are slow songs. Several songs are very forgettable, but then you have cut 11, Twenty Flight Rock, which is tied to Paul joining the Beatles. I didn't like cuts 5 and 10, and cut 18 sounds way too much like cut 1.

Eddie not only recorded, but has had small musical parts in several movies. Mostly he was just a really talented fifties rocker. He was unique and had a wonderful energy. But now his songs of adolesence are frozen in time. He died in a car crash in 1960 at the age of 21. Imagine what might have been."