Career
Wilson joined the Cavaliers after his discharge from Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas in 1962.
The Cavaliers' first chart hit was "Last Kiss", a song written by Wayne Cochran, who had based the song on a car accident in Barnesville, Georgia, near where he lived.
The song, while only garnering minor success for Wayne Cochran & The C.C. Riders, found major success for the Cavaliers. "Last Kiss" became a hit in June 1964, it reached the Top 10 in October of that year, eventually reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
In October 1964, the British music magazine NME reported that Wilson had himself been involved in an auto accident near Memphis, Tennessee, in which his 27-year-old record producer, Sonley Rouch, was killed, and Wilson was seriously injured.
While J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers recorded many more songs, and "Last Kiss" was subsequently covered successfully by Wednesday and Pearl Jam, the band charted with only one other song, "Hey, Little One", which reached #85.
Wilson, with or without the Cavaliers, continued to release records until 1978. He started working offshore oilfield in late 70s and 80s in the Gulf of Mexico. Wilson died on October 4, 1991, at the age of 49, from alcoholism.
Read more about this topic: J. Frank Wilson
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