Wayne Cochran, who wrote a classic love-and-loss pop song while still in his early 20s, then morphed into an energetic rhythm-and-blues singer with a devoted following and an outrageous pompadour before finding a new purpose in a Christian ministry near Miami, died on Nov. 21 in Miramar, Fla. He was 78.
His son, Christopher Cochran, said the cause was cancer.
Mr. Cochran was a relative unknown trying to make it as a singer in Georgia in 1961 when he wrote and recorded “Last Kiss,” a heart-wrencher about a fatal car wreck.
“Well, where, oh where can my baby be?” it starts. “The Lord took her away from me.”
Mr. Cochran’s initial recording did not make much of an impact, but a 1964 cover by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers became a national hit. The song — which Christopher Cochran said was inspired by a real traffic fatality, though not one that his father was involved in — has proved durable. A Canadian group named Wednesday had a modest hit with it in the 1970s, and Pearl Jam did even better with a version recorded in 1998.
Mr. Cochran, though, veered away from teenage pop and into soul and R&B, developing a high-energy stage act with a band he called the C. C. Riders (the initials stood for Cochran Circuit). With his hair in a pompadour of epic dimensions, he put on a propulsive show that earned him the nickname the White Knight of Soul. He drew comparisons to James Brown.
James Brown set the standard for dynamic live performance in American music. Inspired by preachers in the Black church, Brown started out singing in gospel quartets. As the "Godfather of Soul," he transmuted gospel into secular music centered in the emotional conduit of the soul singer. As "the hardest working man in show business," Brown turned ballads into virtuosic theatrical turns—falling hard on his knees, busting into splits and half spins, popping the mike to the floor and back, each move ratcheting up the song’s emotional intensity. As "Soul Brother No. 1," Brown acted as a cultural leader, writing hit songs calling for Black pride. As a progenitor of funk music, Brown with his band created a stripped-down, rhythmically driven aesthetic that has influenced world music from reggae to Afrobeat. Much of popular music since the 1960s comes through James Brown’s moves and grooves. Hip-hop is unimaginable without him.
Wayne Cochran, who wrote a classic love-and-loss pop song while still in his early 20s, then morphed into an energetic rhythm-and-blues singer with a devoted following and an outrageous pompadour before finding a new purpose in a Christian ministry near Miami, died on Nov. 21 in Miramar, Fla. He was 78.
His son, Christopher Cochran, said the cause was cancer.
Mr. Cochran was a relative unknown trying to make it as a singer in Georgia in 1961 when he wrote and recorded “Last Kiss,” a heart-wrencher about a fatal car wreck.
“Well, where, oh where can my baby be?” it starts. “The Lord took her away from me.”
Mr. Cochran’s initial recording did not make much of an impact, but a 1964 cover by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers became a national hit. The song — which Christopher Cochran said was inspired by a real traffic fatality, though not one that his father was involved in — has proved durable. A Canadian group named Wednesday had a modest hit with it in the 1970s, and Pearl Jam did even better with a version recorded in 1998.
Mr. Cochran, though, veered away from teenage pop and into soul and R&B, developing a high-energy stage act with a band he called the C. C. Riders (the initials stood for Cochran Circuit). With his hair in a pompadour of epic dimensions, he put on a propulsive show that earned him the nickname the White Knight of Soul. He drew comparisons to James Brown.
James Brown set the standard for dynamic live performance in American music. Inspired by preachers in the Black church, Brown started out singing in gospel quartets. As the "Godfather of Soul," he transmuted gospel into secular music centered in the emotional conduit of the soul singer. As "the hardest working man in show business," Brown turned ballads into virtuosic theatrical turns—falling hard on his knees, busting into splits and half spins, popping the mike to the floor and back, each move ratcheting up the song’s emotional intensity. As "Soul Brother No. 1," Brown acted as a cultural leader, writing hit songs calling for Black pride. As a progenitor of funk music, Brown with his band created a stripped-down, rhythmically driven aesthetic that has influenced world music from reggae to Afrobeat. Much of popular music since the 1960s comes through James Brown’s moves and grooves. Hip-hop is unimaginable without him.