06/08/1982
By Edna Gundersen
Times staff writer
Bobby Fuller, 23, barely had a toehold in the fickle rock ‘n’ roll business when he died under a cloud of controversy July 18, 1966. Some thought he was destined to be America’s next superstar recording artist. Bobby’s death shattered the lives of many people close to him. With hesitation, they agreed to share their memories of Bobby with The Times. Among those interviewed were Bobby’s mother, Loraine Fuller, who agreed to talk after avoiding the press for 16 years. She explained, “It hurts to remember the past, but I feel I owe it to Bobby.” The segment, on the resurgence of his music, ends this three-part series.
The “I Fought the Law” album, released a few months before Bobby Fuller died in 1966, has been out of print nearly 16 years. It sells for a king’s ransom.
Bobby Fuller, a singing sensation who blossomed in El Paso, has been resurrected as a national cult hero:
-It’s almost impossible to find a rock anthology that doesn’t include the Bobby Fuller Four’s only smash single, “I Fought the Law.”
-The infectious tune Bobby made famous has been adopted as covers for contemporary supergroups The Clash and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as well as Hank Williams Jr.
-Bobby’s first album, “KRLA King of the Wheels,” is being traded among collectors for $100 and up.
-Rising star Phil Seymour released a version of Bobby’s bubbly “Let Her Dance.”
-No oldie band is worth its salt without a Bobby Fuller composition in its repertoire.
-At KRTH, a big Los Angeles radio station, “I Fought the Law” and “Let Her Dance” are permanent items on the list of top oldies.
-And nationwide, the kinky Drink to the Death club toasts Bobby’s memory with an elaborate gala every July 18, the anniversary of the rock ‘n’ roller’s untimely death.
One enduring Fuller Four fan recently noted, “You can’t tune into an L.A. station on the weekend without hearing Bobby Fuller. There’s a revival going on. I love it.”
Even in the El Paso area, where audiences sometimes snubbed the musician, Bobby Fuller is revered. Among the local performers who include Bobby’s music in their acts are Bill Welsh, the Sixth Column and Moonpie Dance Band, which includes former Bobby Fuller Four drummer Dalton Powell.
Steve Crosno, a longtime El Paso disc jockey now spinning platters at KSET, said Bobby is a hot potato on the oldie charts. “I Fought the Law” is consistently on our Top 13 of oldies. Lately, I’ve noticed a resurgence of interest in Bobby Fuller. It doesn’t surprise me. He was really original. He sounded unique.”
An epidemic of Bobby Fuller fever seems imminent.
Last October, Rhino Records in Los Angeles released an album of Bobby Fuller hits. Another record company, Bomp, is preparing a package of mostly unreleased material to go public this fall.
Gary Stewart, head marketing at Rhino Records, said the album project began in January 1979. “I wanted to let people know Bobby Fuller had more than one good song,” he said. The LP, which includes “I’m a Lucky Guy,” an unreleased track and one of Bobby’s last recorded efforts, has sold briskly in New York and Texas. Nearly 10,000 copies have been sold, impressive statistics for an oldie compilation. In El Paso, the album is available at Nostalgia Place, 4665-A Montana.
The record itself fueled the Bobby fuller revival, spurring many California bands to add the El Pason’s material to their play list. Stewart said, “His music is very interesting,” he added. “He tried to blend Buddy Holly with the British Invasion sound. The result is a new hybrid which even today sounds very contemporary.”
Perhaps more significant than record sales are the critical notices the album has garnered. Traditionally music reviewers give passing yawns to repackaged oldies or ignore them completely. The Bobby Fuller LP is drawing raves. One magazine termed it “14 exhilarating rock ‘n’ roll vignettes from El Paso’ ill-fated answer to the British Invasion.”
A critic wrote: “This collection is culled from the semi-precious LP the group made, various singles and even a few unreleased tunes. Since the original LP is expensive and the Japanese reissue 13 or 14 bucks, this is a steal, because Fuller combined the grace and expertise of Buddy Holly with rambunctious Tex-Mex (a la Eddie Cochran) rhythms, the strength of R&B, the loneliness and soul of country and his own careful and meticulous sense of song structure and embellishment. ‘Let Her Dance’ is an absolute tour de force.”
Another claimed the songs “show that this quartet was on the brink of making it bit” and that The Bobby Fuller Four “succeeded in creating a distinct signature sound that features a surprisingly progressive (for the time) rock feel.”
One critic described the sound as “advanced melodic garage band rock” and added, “the music on this album sounds technologically advanced for 1981, much less 1965. … It’s a boisterous bunch of music that has maintained its freshness.”
A New York music writer, reviewing the Bobby Fuller Four LP along with a Ritchie Valens disc on the same label, noted, “Rhino Records has just done the world an incredible service by releasing from the vaults of Del-Fi Records the works of two of the greatest rock ‘n’ rollers that ever lived, both of whom had the potential to be twice as great – had they lived.”
An upcoming Bomp Records collection promises to be an ambitious undertaking. Greg Shaw, a former rock history writer who packaged 50 LPs of vintage material for other labels before founding Bomp, was first challenged by the idea of a definitive Bobby Fuller tribute album when a local journalist introduced him to a woman who possessed copies of original unreleased works by the Bobby Fuller Four.
“Some of the songs were not too exciting, but others were amazing.” Shaw said. Intrigued, Shaw researched the Bobby Fuller story and, through coincidence, was contacted by Rick Stone, bobby’s former road manger, who told him dozens of original tapes of unreleased songs were available.
“The tapes overwhelm Bobby Fullers’ two or three hits,” Shaw said. “Only the tip of the iceberg was ever released.
Shaw envisions a double LP released in four to six months, possibly followed by other records, including perhaps a live album. He hopes to compile a biographical booklet to accompany the record and maybe inspire a full-length book or television movie based on the musician’s life. By using Bomp’s distribution agreement with Elektra/Asylum Records, Shaw believes the package can find a broader audience than the cult market, which probably will account for sales of 10,000 copies.
“Maybe we’ll get a hit single, too,” he said. “That might be unlikely, but you never know. It could happen.”
Shaw also predicts the album will sell briskly in England, where music consumers are mesmerized by early U.S. rockers and tend to be more accepting than Americans of off-the-beaten-path releases.
In preparing for the Bomp project, Rick Stone and Ron Evans, manager and chief engineer, at El Adobe Recoding, spent about 40 hours listening to reels of Bobby Fuller’s music.
Evans, who was hired by Bomp to polish the rough tracks, culled about four hours of tunes from the batch, including the earliest version of hits, some live performances and even an El Paso radio spot Bobby taped to promote a weekend dance at Eastwood High School.
“I enjoyed the Fuller music so much. I just wanted to get involved.” Evans said. “Listening to those tapes blew me away completely. He sang so well. Bobby’s voice always sounded like a million bucks, always on pitch, very expressive. He was so accomplished for his time. This music floored me.
“Bobby used some revolutionary techniques in his studio, a garage studio. He had a greater insight for what would be popular. He was always innovation. Bobby liked to experiment, and the results were usually tasteful.”
The cuts being proposed to Bomp feature strong vocals, crisp instrumentation, and spunky uncluttered melodies. The batch is extremely diverse touting such seemingly incongruous songs as “Greensleeves,” “Nervous Breakdown” and a peculiar medley of “Miserlou,” “”Havah Nagilah” and “Pipeline.” Some rock numbers flaunt decidedly atypical arrangements that rely on subtle use of tambourine, piano, acoustic guitar and clinking beer bottles. Finger cymbals were used in “Don’t Ever Let Me Know.”
If the resurrected tunes reveal anything it is Bobby Fuller’s immense untapped potential.
“If Bobby Fuller had lived,” Rick Stone said, “He would have been a big star, a cross between Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers. He was doing something original, something creative, something worthwhile. … Some people never got the chance to find out what a great talent he was.”
Rod Crosby, a longtime E Paso musician whose band once rivaled the Bobby Fuller Four, said Bobby’s death disrupted a skyward climb.
“I believed he might have been the next Neil Diamond or B.J. Thomas, some kind of a popular stand-up act in Las Vegas. I don’t think he was a genius by any measure, but he was dedicated and determined and he always overshadowed everyone around him.”
Bobby’s death not only was a tragic loss for his friends and family, but was a dismal turning point in musical history.
“Bobby was the typical all-American boy, attractive, talented, wholesome and bright,” Rod said. “When he started, rock was a healthy entity, and he had it whipped with everything form rowdy rock songs to love ballads. In some ways, his death stared a decline. Rock became more and more ugly. It lost is positive direction. Today, a lot of popular bands are rooted in hopelessness and desperation.”
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