*The deceased is a United States citizen and was by profession a well-known rock and roll singer

*Police report on death of Eddie Cochran

''Just before he died, Eddie had played me a song called Cut Across Shorty.

'He said it would be his next release, with Three Steps To Heaven on the B-side.

'But on the steps of the Bath hospital where Eddie had just died, Larry Parnes announced to the Press that by a strange irony, Eddie's next release was called Three Steps To Heaven.

'He exploited the situation and I fell out with him over that' - Vince Eager

The plaque at the site - picture by Rob Dee.

BBC Radio feature marking 50th anniversary of Cochran's death on April 17, 1960

Eddie Cochran was born in Albert Lea , Minnesota on October 3rd 1938 .

The young musician left school at 16 years and four months to work with local club singer Hank Cochran.

Although the two recoded and toured as “The Cochran Brothers", the two were not related.

To launch his solo career Eddie had a cameo in the 1956 film The Girl Can’t Help It in which he sang the song Twenty Flight Rock.

Cochran’s Summertime Blues only reached number 18 in the UK chart when it was released in 1958.

He is credited with being one of the first guitarists to use an unwound third string, a musical technique to ‘bend’ notes up a whole tone.

Eddie was posthumously admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

His hit C’mon Everybody was used in a UK Levi ad campaign in 1988 and reached number 14 in the UK in the same year.

Jimmi Hendrix, The Sex Pistols, Led Zepplin and the Beatles are among several iconic artists that have covered the young rocker’s songs.

He had been on tour in the UK when he died early on the morning of 17th April 1960 aged just 21 in Chippenham, Wiltshire. 

On his way to the airport to fly home his taxi crashed into a lamp post leaving him with fatal head injuries.  There’s a memorial plaque at the site of the crash.

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