Eddie Cochran Memorial Car Show returns to Bell Gardens
BELL GARDENS, CA — The Eddie Cochran Memorial Car Show returns to Ford Park in Bell Gardens on Saturday, Oct. 4, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Now in its second year, the free event will feature pre-1964 classic cars, a pin-up contest, live rockabilly music, and a beer garden.
“(It’s) a great event,” City Manager Michael O’Kelly said at the most recent city council meeting. “Bands, contests, vendors, a lot of cool cars.”
The show honors hometown legend Eddie Cochran, whose guitar-driven sound influenced everyone from The Beatles to the Sex Pistols. The event is also dedicated to raising awareness and funds for SELA Kiwanis student scholarships, supporting local youth in pursuing higher education.
The rockabilly showcase will feature Bebo & the Good Time Boys, Hillbilly Wolves, Los Apaches, Hot Rod Trio, and Los Motosaicos, a rockabilly and blues band from San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico.
The show is sponsored by the City of Bell Gardens and hosted by the Basin Bombers Social Club and the Southeast Los Angeles Kiwanis Club.
Additional support comes from local groups including Parkwest Bicycle Casino, OMLO (Olivarez Madruga Law Organization LLP), The Principia Group, Universal Waste Systems, Athens Services, and West Coast Arborists.
Car owners can register their vehicles on site. For more information, visit eddiecochranmemorialcarshow.org.
Who was Eddie Cochran?
Back in Bell Gardens’ “Billy Goat Acres” era—when the city was dotted with affordable homesteads, still freshly subdivided from former farmland, occupied by Midwestern and Dust Bowl migrants, with unpaved streets and even goats in yards—Eddie Cochran moved with his family from Minnesota in 1953. By the mid-1950s, he had dropped out of Bell Gardens High School and was performing locally, including gigs at American Legion Post 465 still located on Eastern Avenue.
In 1958, Cochran’s biggest hit “Summertime Blues” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to sell more than a million copies. Cochran’s life was cut short at just 21 in a car crash while touring the United Kingdom, but his influence grew and would help shape the British Invasion a few years later. When Paul McCartney auditioned for John Lennon’s skiffle group The Quarrymen in 1957—a band that would later evolve into The Beatles—he played Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock.”
Today, Cochran is remembered as Bell Gardens’ homegrown rock ’n’ roll pioneer—“James Dean with a guitar,” as he was often described.
