Born in Oklahoma City on 3^rd October 1938, he lived in Minnesota until 1949. Eddie was the youngest of five children and by the age of twelve had taught himself to play the guitar. His family moved to Bell Gardens, California, where he began playing country music, forming a duo with obscure hillbilly singer Hank Cochran (no relation). They began recording as the Cochran Brothers in 1955, but they split up the following year. He then began writing songs with a bloke he'd meet in a local music shop.

After recording Skinny Jim for the small Crest label, he was snapped up by Liberty Records and immediately cast in the Jayne Mansfield film The Girl Can't Help It, where he sang Twenty Flight Rock (he was later seen in the movies Untamed Youth and Go Johnny Go!). This was to be Eddie’s first release, but Liberty chose Sittin' In The Balcony instead, making the US Top Twenty. Eddie had two minor successes before Summertime Blues took him into the Top Ten in 1958. His follow-up, C'mon Everybody made the Top Forty that same year.

But whereas he had only three significant hits in America, he enjoyed ten in Britain, including Somethin' Else and Jeanie Jeanie Jeanie. On Sunday 17^th April 1960, after ending a ten week tour of England, Eddie was motoring to London airport in the early hours of the morning, when the limousine he was in, blew a tyre, causing a collision near the town of Chippenham in Wiltshire. Eddie sustained serious head injuries and died in the Bath Hospital a short time later. His girlfriend and fellow artist Gene Vincent were also in the car at the time.

His hit single at the time was Three Steps to Heaven, which went to number one in the UK. His body was flown to California and he was buried in Hollywood. He was only twenty-one years old. Cochran was an exceptionally talented guitarist, an energetic stage performer and an early master of studio overdubbing.

Eddie Cochran was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.