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Bobby Fuller was born in 1942 in Baytown, Texas. He enjoyed playing guitar, writing songs and singing them and eventually formed The Bobby Fuller Four in El Paso with his brother Randy and two friends, Jim Reese and DeWayne Quirico. The group played in El Paso for three years before signing a record contract and moving to Los Angeles.
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. In later years the influence of The Bobby Fuller Four was seen in music recorded by such groups as The Clash, the Blasters, and Los Lobos.
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 in July, 1966 just five months after I Fought The Law had entered the charts. His body was covered with gasoline, and apparently gasoline was also discovered in his lungs. According to some sources, he had died in an automobile accident. 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.
His brother Randy, bass player for The Bobby Fuller Four, tried unsuccessfully to keep the group going for a while, but it did not last long. Bobby Fuller was 23 years old at the time of his death. |
