System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Bobby Fuller, Musician
October 22, 1943 - July 18, 1966
Bobby Fuller was born in Goose Creek, Texas, on October 22, 1943. When he was fourteen his family moved to El Paso, where he began his career in music. In the late 1950s he was playing drums in a local band called the Counts. They performed in shopping-centre parking lots around the city and drew criticism from members of various El Paso churches.
By 1962 Fuller had teamed up with rhythm guitarist Jim Reese, drummer Dewayne Quirico, and bassist Randy Fuller (Bobby's brother) to form the Bobby Fuller Four. Bobby, as singer and songwriter, became the group's front man. With the financial help of his parents he built a recording studio and established his own record label, Exeter, which released his first recording, "I Fought the Law." Fuller also opened the Teen Rendezvous Club, a hot spot in the El Paso area. After the club burned down in 1964, the band moved to Los Angeles and began recording with Bob Keene of Mustang Records. Keene had been successful with Richie Valens, Buddy (Charles Hardin) Holly, and the Big Bopper, all of whom were killed in the same plane crash in 1959.
The Bobby Fuller Four was influenced in its music quite a bit by another rock-and-roll star who had also come from West Texas, Buddy Holly. The lead guitar player in Holly's band, The Crickets, was Sonny Curtis, who wrote what proved to be the biggest song ever for The Bobby Fuller Four. That song was I Fought The Law. They recorded other songs; some written by Holly, but I Fought The Law was their only record to reach the top ten in the charts. Fuller made his film debut as the co-star of Bikini Party in a Haunted House. The Bobby Fuller Four went on two national tours and, after completing some unfinished recordings in Los Angeles, decided to break up.
Bobby Fuller was a talented musician, songwriter and performer and most likely would have gone on to bigger and better things had he lived longer. His lifeless body was found in an automobile parked outside of a Los Angeles apartment building on July 18, 1966 just five months after I Fought The Law had entered the charts. His body was covered with gasoline. The LA coroner ruled it a suicide, though few people agreed with the finding. His friends suspected that he had been murdered, possibly at the hands of organized crime. Bobby Fuller was 23 years old at the time of his death. He was buried on July 22nd, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burbank.
