And Gene Vincent sang ‘Well, be-bop-a-lula she’s my baby’
‘Well, be-bop-a-lula she’s my baby’. It is by intoning these words, between nonsense and a love song, that Gene Vincent – at the registry office Eugene Vincent Craddockborn in Norfolk, Virginia, on February 11, 1935 and died at the age of 36, on October 12, 1971 – found himself thrown at full speed into the upper floors of the rock’n’roll edifice, which was strengthening his identity. The curly-haired musician wrote the piece in 1956, when he was 21 years old, and his group was the Blue Caps. Over time, Vincent will increasingly embody the rebellious and cursed ideal of that musical genre that he himself helped to create by giving his contribution at the end of the 1950s.
When he hits the stages with the other two stars of the rock’n’roll firmament Little Richard and Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent he is already known for his unorthodox performances, which make the magazines cry foul. A few years before sealing the rumors, inaugurating a look of rigorous tight black leather, our man was involved in a bad car accident together with Eddie Cochran and his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley: the friend and colleague loses his life, Vincent and Sheeley emerge with some fractures. The new decade has just begun and the musician still has a long way to go, which will also see him cross paths with the Fab Four in two of the quartet’s historic locations, Hamburg and Liverpool, where both will perform. We turn our thoughts to this rocker with the glittery hair, remembering the classics he left behind as a legacy.
“Be-Bop-A-Lula”
“Lovin’ Fight”
“Race with the Devil”
“Bluejean Bop”
“Woman Love”
“Dance to the Bop”
“Crazy Beat”
“Say Mama”
“I Sure Miss You”
“Baby Blue”
