DC Share Revival: Review: Eddie Cochran - The Very Best of Eddie Cochran: Tenth Anniversary Album (recorded 1956

Rating: 80/100 - Genre: Rockabilly.

Born in Minnesota and raised largely in Bell Gardens, California, Eddie Cochran soaked up country picking, rhythm and blues, and the bustling amateur scene of post-war Los Angeles. He paired briefly with Hank Cochran (no relation) as the Cochran Brothers before shifting to a leaner, guitar-forward sound under the guidance of Jerry Capehart, who recognized that Eddie’s strengths—tight rhythm work, quick-wit arranging, a radio-ready voice—could flourish on Liberty sessions. Contemporary overviews by reputable institutions summarize his rapid rise from Crest/Ekko singles to Liberty hits, his standing as a writer who handled his own sessions, and his lasting regard among British players who heard these discs as a toolkit rather than relics.

Inside the studio, Cochran behaved like a hands-on arranger. Accounts from the Summertime Blues date at Gold Star Studios describe him stacking parts, coaching background voices, and working with Larry Levine to make modest resources sound bigger than the room. “We were doing a lot of overdubbing… we put a board on the floor and stomped and clapped,” Levine recalled, a neat window onto Cochran’s make-it-work method: few instruments, well-timed accents, and smart use of echo. The same method animates C’mon Everybody and Somethin’ Else, where a limited set of tools—snare crack, slapped acoustic, short electric bursts—does the job better than any piling-on could.

The guitar at the heart of these sessions has become almost a character of its own. Cochran favored a modified Gretsch 6120—bright, percussive, and easy to coax into tidy bends—which decades later would be honored with a signature model.

Even beyond his own hits, the songs traveled. The tale of a Liverpool teenager impressing a skiffle band leader with Twenty Flight Rock is well documented—Paul McCartney’s memory of that day has been consistent for years, and it tells you how adaptable Cochran’s parts were to a small-group setup with one electric guitar, one acoustic, and a simple kit. “I did ‘Twenty Flight Rock’… That’s what got me into The Beatles,” McCartney said; what matters is the ease with which another musician could pick up the riff and make it work in a new context.

Taken together, the album’s sixteen tracks sketch a studio thinker who wrote for performance and for tape at the same time. The arrangements prize clarity; the playing focuses on punch and swing; the writing keeps verses brisk and hooks unavoidable. When Jerry Capehart says the Summertime Blues idea clicked in under an hour, it doesn’t reduce the achievement—it explains it. Cochran knew how to put the right sounds in the right places and stop when the song was complete

Eddie Cochran occupies the foreground of a careful commercial and archival effort that resulted in the 1970 UK compilation The Very Best of Eddie Cochran — Tenth Anniversary Album, a single-disc Liberty Records issue released with the catalogue number LBS 83337 and presented as a fully laminated 16-track LP aimed at reconnecting a new record-buying public with selections from the late 1950s singles. The package combined the most familiar titles from Cochran’s catalogue with a handful of covers and instrumentals so that listeners would find both the hits that had lingered in the public ear and the other sides that show how his records were put together; the running order included well-known singles such as Summertime Blues, C’mon Everybody, Somethin’ Else and Three Steps to Heaven alongside recorded takes of songs like Blue Suede Shoes and Hallelujah, I Love Her So. The record was marketed in Britain and in parts of continental Europe in the spring of 1970, and some territories saw variant packages — notably a gatefold issue released in France. The commemorative wording that gave the album its publisher-friendly title referred to the tenth anniversary of Cochran’s passing in 1960, and the release should be read both as a commercial compilation and as a curated snapshot of single-era material.

The album’s appearance in the charts underlines the continuing public interest in those sides: the compilation entered the Official UK Albums Chart in 1970 and peaked at number 34, a concrete sign that a decade after the original singles circulated there was an active market for a compact, accessible selection. Liberty/United Artists catalogue managers in the UK oversaw a programme of repackaging back-catalogue material during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the Cochran tenth-anniversary release joined a string of similar projects designed to place classic singles into single-LP formats suitable for new listeners and for buyers who wanted a concise representation of an artist’s best-known work. That institutional context helps explain choices visible in the pressing: the sleeve treatments, the decision to use original single-era mixes rather than newly constructed stereo remixes in most copies, and the promotional approach that emphasized a striking plate photograph and a gold-toned presentation. Dealer descriptions repeatedly call out the package’s gold-toned sleeve and fully laminated picture jacket, and collectors note that sleeve variants — from gatefold to single-pocket to promotional inserts.

Summertime Blues opens the set with clipped bass notes, floor-tom thuds, and those famous baritone put-downs that drop into the arrangement like stage asides. The guitars punch in short bursts, tremolo-picked fills giving way to stop-time breaks where the backbeat and voice do the heavy lifting. The piece was conceived quickly, as Jerry Capehart recalled: “I said, ‘You know, Eddie, there’s never been a blues song written about the summertime. Let’s write a song called ‘Summertime Blues.’ … Forty-five minutes later, it was all over.” Engineer Larry Levine remembered building the record from small, tough elements—voices, handclaps, and overdubbed footstomps—so that every accent felt like a shove. Those memories square with what we hear: minimal chords, maximum nerve.

C’mon Everybody tightens the focus. A slapped acoustic drives the downbeats while an electric twang guitar skitters between vocal lines. Group shouts arrive like camera flashes; the drum part is mostly snare and cymbal with kick drum used as punctuation, never bluster. Cochran’s rhythm right hand stays relentless, muting strings to make the beat snap, then releasing on the tail of a phrase so the chord blooms for a split second—a tiny dynamic trick that makes the track jump.

Cut Across Shorty brings skiffle DNA into a west-coast studio frame. Against a lightly shuffled groove, Cochran rides a bright, almost percussive acoustic pattern, inserting quick bluesy turnarounds between the verses. The bass walks in short spurts rather than long strides, which keeps the tune moving without ever turning heavy. When the electric steps forward for a reply phrase, it’s not a grandstanding break, just a tart rejoinder that keeps the story rolling.

On Nervous Breakdown the tempo jolts ahead, guitar slurs tearing across the bar lines. The vocal sits hot in the mix, slightly gritty, with slap-echo trimmed down to a short halo. Cochran’s fills toggle between single-note runs and clipped double-stops; combined with a tight snare, the effect is tension without clutter.

Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie steps into a vamp that’s all attitude and economy: a throbbing two-note figure, a snare on two and four, and a voice that leans on off-beats to sound sly without showboating. The bridge widens the harmony just enough to freshen the return to the riff. Cochran keeps the lead brief, using bends and a quick rake rather than long runs, leaving space for the drums to bark.

Somethin’ Else—co-written with Sharon Sheeley and Bob Cochran—arrives with a sting in the opening guitar figure, then kicks into a mid-tempo strut built on choked chords and pick-up notes. The lyric’s everyday wants fit the playing: concise, practical, never fussy. The break is a model of economy, four bars that say all they need to with bent-note emphasis and a brisk retreat to the verse.

Teenage Heaven smooths the edges without sanding them away. The guitars are cleaner, the background voices closer, and the drums favor a swaying backbeat. Yet even here Cochran sneaks in off-kilter anticipations before chorus landings—micro-surprises that keep the record from coasting.

With Twenty Flight Rock, the set tips its cap to the movie moment that introduced Cochran to millions. The riff is a staircase in sound—ascending lyric, ascending energy—while the band struts behind him on a steady backbeat.

Weekend slams the snare a little harder and pushes the bass forward, giving the chorus a rowdy, everyone-in-the-room lift. Short call-and-response lines clip the ends of phrases, and the hook arrives with unison shouts that sound built for dance halls. If C’mon Everybody is the blueprint, Weekend is the later-night reprise.

Pretty Girl eases into mid-tempo with glistening arpeggios and a softly pulsing bass. Cochran shades syllables rather than belting them; the electric guitar answers in sighing slides, the kind of small gesture that turns a compliment into a smile. A tremolo lick in the middle eight offers the only hint of flash.

Sittin’ in the Balcony, his early Liberty breakthrough, trades swagger for a melodic charm that still carries muscle. The arrangement floats on chiming rhythm guitar and brushed snare; the central hook is melodic enough to stick without effort, and the little bass doodles between lines feel like winks from the bandstand. Contemporary charts placed the single just outside the Top 15 in the U.S., a strong showing for an artist still finding his way into national radio.

Hallelujah I Love Her So brings Cochran’s guitar into the Ray Charles songbook with a light swing and horn-like stabs voiced on six strings. He accents the backbeat with clipped chord punches, then lays back to let the drums and bass carry the middle-eight. The vocal phrasing mirrors Charles’s gospel-tinged flow while staying firmly in Cochran’s own drawl, a careful balance of homage and personality.

Three Stars stands apart for its hush: tremolo guitar, gentle chording, and a voice recorded close, almost as if sung to a few friends after midnight. The production refuses grand gestures; each phrase settles quietly, a study in restraint that shows how much presence Cochran could project without raising the volume.

Boll Weevil Song returns to a border-blues frame, with a speaking-voice verse approach that lets the guitar add dry, wiry fills between lines. The rhythm section stomps in place rather than galloping, creating a front-porch sway; when the chorus lands, the chords brighten for a moment before slipping back to the earthy vamp.

Three Steps to Heaven completes the album with a buoyant, almost country-pop lilt—acoustic strum in the foreground, electric filigree at the edges, and close harmonies that glide through the refrain. The drum part is light on cymbals, heavy on snare taps; the production keeps voices and guitars tight together.

You might also like the review I wrote for "Lonnie Donegan - Lonnie Donegan Showcase (1956)".

Friday, August 29, 2025

Review: Eddie Cochran - The Very Best of Eddie Cochran: Tenth Anniversary Album (recorded 1956 - 1960, released 1970)

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