He changed his name to Gene Vincent and formed a rockabilly band, Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (a term used in reference to enlisted sailors in the U.S. Early music career Ĭraddock became involved in the local music scene in Norfolk. He spent time in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and was medically discharged from the navy shortly thereafter. Years later in some of his music biographies, there is no mention of an accident, but it was claimed that his injury was due to a wound incurred in combat in Korea.
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Most accounts relate the accident as the fault of a drunk driver who struck him.
He wore a steel sheath as a leg brace for the rest of his life. He refused to allow the leg to be amputated, and the leg was saved, but the injury left him with a limp and pain. On July 4, 1955, while he was in Norfolk, his left leg was shattered in an auto crash. He sailed home from Korean waters aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin but was not part of the ship's company.Ĭraddock planned a career in the Navy and, in 1955, used his $612 re-enlistment bonus to buy a new Triumph motorcycle. He never saw combat but completed a Korean War deployment.
He completed boot camp and joined the fleet as a crewman aboard the fleet oiler USS Chukawan, with a two-week training period in the repair ship USS Amphion, before returning to the Chukawan. As he was under the age of enlistment, his parents signed the forms allowing him to enter.
His parents moved the family to Norfolk, the home of a large naval base, and opened a general store and sailors' tailoring shop.Ĭraddock dropped out of school in 1952, at the age of seventeen, and enlisted in the United States Navy. Craddock's mother maintained the general store in Munden Point. Coast Guard and patrolled American coastal waters to protect Allied shipping against German U-boats during World War II. He received his first guitar at the age of twelve as a gift from a friend.Ĭraddock's father volunteered to serve in the U.S. He showed his first real interest in music while his family lived in Munden Point (now Virginia Beach), in Princess Anne County, Virginia, near the North Carolina line, where they ran a country store. His favorite composition was Beethoven's Egmont overture. His musical influences included country, rhythm and blues, and gospel. Biography Early life Ĭraddock was born February 11, 1935, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Mary Louise and Ezekiah Jackson Craddock. He is sometimes referred to by his somewhat unusual nickname/moniker the "Screaming End". Vincent was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In the UK, he was a somewhat bigger star, racking up eight top 40 hits from 1956 to 1961. His chart career was brief, especially in his home country of the US, where he notched three top 40 hits in 1956 and '57, and never charted in the top 100 again. His 1956 top ten hit with his backing band the Blue Caps, " Be-Bop-a-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly. Vincent Eugene Craddock (Febru– October 12, 1971), known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rockabilly and rock and roll. Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation
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