The Passing of Music Icons 2017 – Wayne Cochran – November 21, 2017 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    This is a work in progress for the year 2017. When a music Icon passes, their life is documented in many online tributes. When I started this series, I had the intention of recalling personal memories relating to the musician. While there are many sources for the details of their life and death, for many years, I have tried to capture my personal feelings when a music Icon I enjoyed passes. I usually try to write a contemporaneous note and compile them at end of the year. I do this just as a reminder that all things must pass and musicians mark the mood of the times with their music. - Bobby Tony

    First off, I would like to say that this series is beginning to feel like a bad job and a Monday morning. Having said that, I now find that the series was bound to take off as almost all of those performers are in the aging population as am I.

    Wayne Cochran (78) was one of those performers that I was aware of as a teen in Georgia. He was born in Thomaston, Georgia.  Perhaps his claim to fame was originally based on the fact that he wrote the song "Last Kiss" which was a hit by J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers in 1964. Below is there rendition of his song.

    But for us Georgia boys, he will be remembered as the guy who had limited talent but tremendous stage presence. I saw him often in Atlanta and at our local teen hang-out Misty Waters where such performers as the Allman Joys, Mac Davis, Jerry Reed and numerous others played before they made their bones in the business.

    Wayne relocated to Macon Georgia and became friends with fellow Georgia singers like James Brown, Little Richard and Otis Redding. He must have seen something in the growing soul singer persona that he could use to his benefit. He adopted what was a fairly outlandish persona as a White Soul singer.  He was often described as one of the founding members of the blue-eyed soul genre. His back up band was the C. C. Riders; the name taken from the old blues song. He later moved to Las Vegas and met Elvis who also adapted part of Wayne's costume with the cape and all.

   Here is his description of his act:

"I grew up with Otis and James and Little Richard, the horns and everything, I thought that was commonplace," Cochran told Late Night With David Letterman in 1982.

"So that's why we put together an R&B band. And I had been hanging out with them, and to me rhythm and blues was like a more intense rock… it was a little more intense than Top 40 rock, and once you ever sung it and expressed yourself, you really couldn't just go back to Top 40 rock… So I stayed with it, and tried to learn by hanging out with my friends and the people I begin to know in the black community, learn not only the music but the roots of it. I think that was important."

Rolling Stone

    Today this may look somewhat sacrilegious and a satirical act stolen from James Brown, but he was a dedicated performer who took his music seriously. He became known as the "The White Knight of Soul"

   Here is a sample of the stage act he developed into a fairly lucrative career.

    What does an aging performer do after his musical moment on the stage is over.  Wayne moved to Miami and became a Soul Saving Minister. I would be willing to bet his sermons had a resemblance to his musical act.