The Bobby Fuller 4 I fought the law

[Hafner]

Now that is a wonderful song - with an awful text concerning Bobby Fuller's death: "I fought the law - and the law won".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J-xucRvYCOU
http://www.classicbands.com/fullerfour.html

[Lostheart]

Originally Posted by Hafner

Now that is a wonderful song - with an awful text concerning Bobby Fuller's death: "I fought the law - and the law won".

I don't get it...what does the lyrics have to do with his passing?
Wasn't he murdered?

[Hafner]

I have read, that the police ("the law") was not investigating his death correctly (they did not take fingerprints out of the Oldsmobile !). Mysterious. So the law won against him and his parents.

[Tim Armstrong]

Yeah, it should have been something like "I fought the Mob and the Mob won!"

Cheers, Tim

[Heather Anne Peel]

Sonny Curtis actually wrote this song. Sonny also wrote "Love Is All Around", which was used as the theme for The Mary Tyler Moore show.

[woodman]

Sonny's a great story in himself. he was one of Buddy Holly's early Crickets, and a hero to young Waylon Jennings. He also wrote "Walk Right Back," a hit for the Everlys.

Bobby Fuller was one of those snuffed-out young talents that make you wonder, "what if."

[shakedancer]

I believe he commited suicide!!

[slauson slim]

Wasn't it suicide? Another great Bobby Fuller Four song was "Let Her Dance" - relentless beat, ringing guitars.

[Tim Armstrong]

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Bobby Fuller's demise:

"Just as "I Fought The Law" became a top ten hit, Bobby Fuller was found dead in a parked automobile near his Los Angeles home. The police considered the death an apparent suicide, however many people still believe Fuller was murdered. He was found with multiple wounds all over his body and covered in gasoline leading many to speculate that the perpetrators fled before they could set the car on fire. He is buried in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles."

Cheers, Tim

[brianwenz]

Hello Hello--
It was NO suicide. Among other things, the gas was forced down his throat...
Brian.

[tazzboy]

Here is some readying material for you non-believers

Just recently, I watched an episode of TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” which featured a very interesting story about the incidents surrounding the death of the young singer Bobby Fuller (of the Bobby Fuller Four).

Fuller was only 23 when he died.

I always loved the song “I Fought The Law”, which was written by Sonny Curtis, who was a member of the famous Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and became a top ten hit when covered by the BF4 way back in 1966.

Until I saw this particular “Unsolved Mysteries” show, I thought I just very vaguely recalled hearing or reading some news that Bobby Fuller was killed in car crash, and never realised what was actually involved in his premature death.

During the segment, they showed old grainy black and white footage of Bobby Fuller singing two songs, including “I Fought The Law”.

Now, like when I first discovered the music of the late, great Buddy Holly, I’ll have to scour music stores to find more songs by the Bobby Fuller Four.

I apologise for the length of the below three supplied stories about the life and times of Bobby Fuller, but if you manage to stay the full distance, it certainly makes fascinating and intriguing reading.

Incidentally, at the beginning of the third article, it’s stated that: “Hey here's a well researched press release from Bryan Thomas, our publicity guy (Del-Fi Records), on Bobby's strange death. We're tryin' to get a movie made and shows like Unsolved Mysteries to do a spot on Bobby.

So, obviously they did manage to get the story onto “Unsolved Mysteries” – not sure how old this show was, but I’ve noticed at the end of some other “UM” programs that I've watched not long ago they were made in 1996 and 1997 – so possibly the show mentioned above re Bobby Fuller is up to ten years old or longer.

[tazzboy]

BOBBY FULLER

BOBBY FULLER (FOUR)
by Bill Holdship, Los Angeles, August, 1997

Growing up in Bad Axe, Michigan, I remember that "I Fought The Law" sounded totally different from anything else you could hear on the AM airwaves in late 1965/early '66. This was, after all, the era of The Beatles and The Supremes - and when radios weren't blaring something that at least resembled that sweet Merseybeat pop sound, they were blasting those dance rhythms from Motown. Sure, one-shot garage-rock hits would be competing for air time within a few short months, but most of those were pretty much Stones-influenced in their "badness."

"I Fought The Law" sounded totally different. When I got older, I realized that the song was probably the grand culmination of all those '50s rebel-rockers coming to roost in one place - but at the time, I just knew that the song sounded "tough" ... Of course, rock 'n' roll already had a tradition of being good-bad but not evil - but, again, "I Fought The Law" was different. "Robbin' people with a " --- BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!! - "six gun ..."

This was scary-sounding stuff to a 9 year old, and I probably reacted to, "I Fought The Law" in much the same way I later reacted to, say, The Doors' "Light My Fire" or Jeff Beck's space-age guitar sound on "Heart Full Of Soul" the first time I heard them on the radio. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before.

When the radio DJ announced that Bobby Fuller had died (later that same year), he mentioned something about Fuller dying from drinking gasoline. Even as a 10 year old, I thought it sounded pretty fishy. I figured he'd been murdered. Not really knowing anything more than the lyrics at the time. I figured he probably got what he deserved. Years went by, and I really never thought much about Bobby Fuller. There were moments of recollection, of course - The Clash covering "I Fought The Law" and John Mellencamp chanting Fuller's name at the end of his mid-80's hit "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A." (even later reworking the theme of "I Fought The Law" into his own "The Authority Song").

And in 1978, just when you thought music like Bobby Fuller's was an anachronism, Lou Reed asked the musical question on "Dirt" from his classic Street Hassle LP: "Hey, you remember that song by this guy from Texas whose name was Bobby Fuller? I'll sing it for you, it went like this - 'I Fought The Law, and the Law won.'" But, again, those simply appeared to be tributes to a great song.

When I was working at CREEM Magazine in the early '80s, however, I got into a discussion with the publication's then New York Editor, Billy Altman, who told me that Buddy Holly was probably his all-time favorite rock 'n' roll star and that he adored Holly in much the same way that I worshipped Elvis Presley. I asked Billy if he'd heard The Hollies' import album of all Buddy Holly - and do him justice - was Bobby Fuller."

Bobby Fuller! Not the Beatles, who'd conceived their very name as a take-off on Holly's Crickets and later transformed his "Words Of Love" into a Merseybeat staple. Not that other badass super group of aging limeys, The Stones, who'd scored their first U.S. hit with a cover of Holly's "Not Fade Away," a full year after Bobby Fuller had recorded the same tune and released it as a single in El Paso. And, of course, not Bobby Vee who could do a near-perfect imitation of Holly and actually replaced him on the final tour after the plane went down in Iowa . . . No, Bobby Fuller was the only artist who could do Buddy Holly justice.

By the summer of 1998, the music scene struck me as being in a total shambles, and a lot of heavy soul-searching was going on as to why I'd ever been drawn to writing about pop (read: rock 'n' roll) music as a career in the first place. On top of that, I'd been living in this den of inequity that calls itself Hollywood for less than two years, and still hadn't grown remotely use to it.

Suffice it to say that it was a long way from Bad Axe. And then one afternoon, I was going through the bins at a used record store when I came upon a Bobby Fuller album. At $4.70, it seemed a steal - but I didn't realize just how much of a steal it was until I got it home and on the turntable. I probably listened to that record more than any other that entire summer and - dare I say it? - it was damn near a religious experience.

The cover version of "Think It Over" (included in this set) proved that Billy Altman had been right - it was like Buddy Holly, but with more balls. "A New Shade Of Blue" was . . . well, just beautiful, and the guitar on this track has always struck me as sounding more advanced than any guitar should've sounded at the time.

And "Only For You," on Del-Fi's previous box-set Shakedown!, was pure romantic magic. That summer, the long dead Bobby Fuller helped me get back in touch with that innocent spirit, the reason I'd fallen for this music in the first place. And he made me want to run out and fall in love with someone right away.

After that, I became almost obsessed with the Bobby Fuller Four, scooping up every album - bootleg, or whatnot - that I could get my hands on. I soon began visiting all the L.A. landmarks - the spot where P.J.'s (the club Forest Lawn gravesite; the Hollywood apartment where he'd lived with his mother and brother Randy . . . and the parking lot (now a park) where his body had been found, not far from Grauman's Chinese Theater.

And as I viewed some of these (at least now) seedy spots - especially in relation to the music - I concluded that Bobby Fuller is probably the ultimate symbol or rock 'n' roll "innocence," dying (literally) amidst the decadence of Hollywood.

After all, it was only a short time after his death that the Sunset Strip became a pyshelelic rock Mecca - and nothing, least of all rock 'n' roll "innocence," was ever the same again. What's more, it became crystal clear - at least to me - that Bobby Fuller was the actual missing link between Buddy Holly and the psychedelic swamp rock of Creedence Clearwater Revival.


Perhaps it was due to his untimely demise, or perhaps, because of his name, he was often lumped in with the other "Bobbys" (Rydell, Vinton, Vee, etc.) that were on the hit parade shortly before his burst of fame - but Bobby Fuller has never been given his due. Which is why this great collection, NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN: The Mustang Years is such a welcome treat.

As a musician who began his career as a drummer, Fuller was always interested in exploring both sound and rhythm. He experimented with sound throughout his short career - first in the studio he'd built in his parents' El Paso home, (where he even attempted to construct one of the world's first echo chambers in the back yard), and then taking it to new heights via his work with Del-Fi's Bob Keane here in Hollywood. He seemed more interested in echo effects and fuzz guitar much earlier than other artists of his generation.

And, of course, he was a fool for melody as well as love.

Here was a Texan who could do surf music (not many oceans in El Paso!) with the best of 'em. Here was a kid who wrote some of his best songs with one of his friend's mom, for gosh sakes! And when you consider that the same man - the Crickets' Sonny Curtis who wrote both "I Fought The Law" and "Rock Around With Ollie Vee" (the latter for Holly) - would later write the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show ("Love Is All Around"), you begin to get some idea of just how all-encapsulating this early generation of rockers' view of music must've been.

Other naysayers have argued that, with their matching suits and non-Beatle hiarcuts, the Bobby Fuller Four obviously weren't made for the future of rock. And yet, anyone who's studied the music can see that Fuller was constantly evolving (witness: the transformation of "Keep On Dancing" into "Let Her Dance").

Those who knew him well claim he was very extremely driven; some have speculated that the murder of his older half-brother Jack led him to believe that he had to live life to its fullest . . . and fast.

Whether it would ultimately matter or not, Fuller was experimenting with LSD (which altered many a pop group's artistic vision) just prior to his death. And, besides, the red suits and hair were mere style; anyone who was there will tell you that as good as the records were, the BF4 were a simply amazing live band (documented here via an entire live set from December '65, originally intended as the Celebrity Night at PJ's LP).

[tazzboy]

And this fact was only driven home on October 22, 1996, when almost three-fourths of the Four - Randy Fuller, DeWayne Quirico, and Billy Webb - reunited for a Bobby Fuller Birthday tribute show at Jack's Sugar Shack in Hollywood and blew most of the young bucks who'd shown up clear out of the room. (And last but not least, Randy Fuller was musically "forward" enough to join drummer Dewey Martin in the last version of Buffalo Springfield in 1969.)

It's interesting to speculate what might've been had Bobby Fuller lived. When you consider the types of artists - punk (The Clash), power-pop (Marshall Crenshaw, Phil Seymour), country (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), and mainstream "heartland" rockers (Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen) - who've covered his music, it only makes the speculation all the greater. Would he have finally gone solo (as was greatly rumored at the time of his death) and actually made that Album with Phil Spector as producer (another reliable rumor at the time)? Would he have followed the example of Rick Nelson and pursued country-rock? Or a more psychedelic roots-rock direction a la CCR or the Buffalo Springfield? Could he have been part of the country "outlaw" movement like fellow Texans Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson? Would he have just been an elder statesmen of rock 'n' roll a la Dick Dale? Or would future experimenting with LSD have produced a brilliant albeit damaged pop casualty like another musical Texan, Roky Erickson (who owes more than just a passing nod himself to Buddy Holly)?

One thing I can say with certainty: Bobby Fuller was truly one of rock 'n' roll's all-time greats.

NOTE: The last photo of Bobby (below left) was taken with Bobby's Pentax by RICK STONE (BF4 Roadmanager 7-15-66) on Rick's own roll of film at the Thousand Oaks Dance Kasey Casem held on a Friday Night, about 3-4 days after BF4 walked off a gig at The Chinese Dragon Club in China Town, SF, CA. He was found dead the following Monday PM. When Rick took the photo, he had an eeeeery feeling that it might be the last ... he'll never forget that moment.



###############

[tazzboy]

THE STRANGE CASE OF BOBBY FULLER:
written by and copyright Aaron J. Poehler

The world of music sometimes seems so filled with premature, tragic, and senseless deaths that they all blend into one woeful story: a young, talented musician cut down in the prime of his (or her) life, at the height of his creativity, just ahead of the cusp of mainstream success; it's a tale told time and again, from Robert Johnson's and Hank Williams' now seemingly prehistoric exits, to the airplane and car wrecks that have felled rockers from Buddy Holly to Marc Bolan, to the 1990's rash of suicides and overdoses--so many that upon hearing of the latest fatality, the weathered rock fan can only shake their head sadly at the predictability of the departures of minor figures like Material Issue's Jim Ellison or INXS's Michael Hutchence.

Yet the bizarre story of Bobby Fuller still stands out from the crowd of rock & roll deaths for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the case remains unsolved to this day. The one Bobby Fuller track everybody knows--the classic single "I Fought the Law"--simply seethes with irony when the listener is aware of Fuller's brutal death.

The amazing music he left behind despite being cut down at the age of 23 is the best argument for his legacy, but the circumstances surrounding that music's creation--and, perhaps, its inevitable termination--provide a puzzle with more twists and turns than any five Hollywood thrillers, and a mystery for the ages.

Robert Gaston Fuller was born October 22, 1942 in Goose Creek, Texas, into a relatively financially stable family, comprised of parents Lawson and Loraine Fuller, half-brother Jack Leflar (twelve years older than Bobby, and Loraine's son from an earlier marriage), and brother Randy (nearly three years older than Bobby).

Soon after Bobby's birth the family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they lived until Bobby was fourteen. In childhood Bobby and Randy started messing around with music to entertain themselves, no doubt aided by the instruments conveniently provided by their parents.

Bobby played drums, piano, and trumpet, while Randy learned guitar and trombone, and the two recorded their early efforts on their parents' reel-to-reel tape recorder, using the moniker 'Captain Fuller and the Rocket Squad'.

One might be tempted to label this a typical suburban paradise of a childhood, but half-brother Jack was already involved in petty theft and making and using homemade explosives in his early teens, often running away from home and clearly gravitating towards the criminal element.

In 1956 Dad got a good job in El Paso and the family packed up and moved back to Texas. Bobby went to school and continued working on his music, while Randy was shipped off to military school in an attempt to steer him away from the path taken by brother Jack, who by now apparently had little contact with the remainder of the family.

After graduating from high school and a technical program, Bobby briefly enrolled in college, but soon quit above the objections of his parents, resolving to make his music his life's pursuit.

He took a job in a local music store selling guitars and amplifiers. Our first indication that all was not well was the discovery of the body of Bobby's half-brother Jack Leflar on February 22, 1961--Jack had been murdered. More than that is unknown, but temptation is high to draw correlation between Jack's criminal connections and the manner of his death.

In any case, the event must surely have impressed upon Bobby the potentially brief nature of life on Earth, for he redoubled his resolve and concentrated upon his music even more devotedly.

He had already attracted attention around El Paso as a drummer, but was working diligently on his songwriting, striking up a collaborative partnership with lyricist Mary Stone, a friend's mother who penned the words to such archetypal 50's romance-styled songs as "You're In Love", "You Kiss Me", "Only For You", and "To Make Love Last".

When Randy got back from military school he was shocked at Bobby's progress, not least at teaching himself the guitar--with Randy's abandoned instrument. Bobby itched to get his tunes down, and set up a session in his parents' living room using members from bands he'd been in around town.

They laid down the Fuller/Stone co-composition "You're In Love" and Bobby's own "Guess We'll Fall In Love" on the same tape recorder he and Randy had used to document their childhood efforts, and the New Mexico-based Yucca Records issued the two tracks as a 45 rpm single around

[tazzboy]

Thanksgiving 1961--Bobby's recorded debut. The single did well locally, going to number 2 on El Paso's radio station KELP and selling over 3,000 copies, giving Bobby no end of encouragement. He formed his own band, drafting brother Randy in but requiring him to learn the bass if he wanted to be involved, since Bobby's abilities on the guitar were now clearly at a 'professional' level.

For his second single, Bobby wanted to take another step into the big leagues and set up a session at Norman Petty's legendary NorVaJak Studios in Clovis, New Mexico; no doubt Bobby was going for the sound Petty had provided for Bobby's idol (and fellow Texan) Buddy Holly's classic tunes like "Not Fade Away", "Peggy Sue", "That'll Be the Day", "It's So Easy", and "Oh Boy!". Bobby's second single (also on Yucca) paired Bobby's "Gently My Love" with "My Heart Jumped" (a cover recommended by producer Petty) but despite the contracted 'professional' sound and sales of over 8,000 singles Bobby was unsatisfied with the tracks.

Deciding he could do at least as well on his own, he set up a studio in his parents' house. This primitive studio was Bobby's salvation; the tapes that have emerged are surprising clear and well-produced. Bobby obviously agreed, and encouraged by the success of his first do-it-yourself move at independence, he issued his third single on his own Eastwood label, pairing covers of Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown" and Holly's "Not Fade Away"--the results compare favorably with the originals both in terms of performance and recording.

Never satisfied with the speed of his career's progress and perhaps tiring of promoting his music at high school dances, Bobby lined up a month of shows out in California, an opportunity Bobby used to haul his singles and tapes around to the various Sunshine State-based record labels.

The only encouragement he found was at Bob Keane's Del-Fi records (best known for its Ritchie Valens and surf music capitalization), where Keane listened to Bobby's tape and told him to come back when he had something that would knock him out.

Back in El Paso, Bobby continued his D.I.Y. streak by opening an all-ages club (with financial support from the Fuller family) called "Bobby Fuller's Teen Rendezvous", and increasing his record-label activities by launching Exeter Records, which released three Bobby Fuller singles in 1964 as well as records by other El Paso acts such as Los Paisanos (who issued the only full-length LP to appear on the label) and the Sherwoods. Bobby's second Exeter single was the most successful of all the Exeter releases: his original version of the Crickets' "I Fought the Law", backed with his own "She's My Girl".

The single went to number one in El Paso and Tucson, but despite this success Bobby was obviously feeling constrained by the limitations of the local market. He called a band meeting to discuss their future, with the intention of planning a move to California to pursue the elusive music industry connections they were so obviously lacking in Texas, despite distribution on the Exeter "I Fought the Law" single by VeeJay (best known for issuing the first Beatles singles in the USA and milking it past the point of legality when the money started coming) and a fourth single ("Saturday Night"/"Stringer") issued by Todd Records, a branch of the music publishing company that had signed Bobby's publishing.

All the members of the band were up for the move excepting drummer Dalton Powell, who had a wife and baby boy in El Paso; after replacing him with DeWayne Quirico, they packed up their green Chevy van with their equipment and headed for Hollywood, California in November 1964--accompanied by Bobby and Randy's mom Loraine, driving alongside in her Oldsmobile.

Upon arrival, they took their latest batch of tapes and discs over to the Del-Fi office again, and this time Keane signed the group, giving them full access to the on-site Del-Fi studio and creating the Mustang Records imprint for the band's music.

They started playing the South California clubs as soon as they could, and quickly attracted attention from Hollywood clubgoers as well as bigger fish like Keith Richards (who reportedly checked the band out when the Stones were staying nearby), Casey Kasem (who booked them for his Teen Dances), and Phil Spector (who sat in with the band, playing piano and guitar, while scouting them out for his Philles label).

Oddly enough, despite all the musical activities of the past, the band hadn't settled on an appropriate name. Most of the D.I.Y. singles had been issued under Bobby's name alone, but the move to California had been accompanied by an all-for-one-and-one-for-all pledge for the band and a promised four-way split of all monies.

The first Del-Fi single was issued under the most common alternate name (one which appears in several surviving advertisements from El Paso) Bobby Fuller and the Fanatics; the second was put out as the Shindigs in an attempt to snag a job as house band on the new ABC TV show Shindig.

While the band toiled away in the studio, Keane decided the Bobby Fuller Four was the most appropriate name, much to the chagrin of the other band members. He also began intruding more upon the Fuller recording sessions.

Bobby had clear ideas about the sound he liked and wanted, having learned through hard-won experience what was and wasn't appropriate for his music, but Keane, as the record label head wanted input into the process, often tarting up the Four's tight, powerful live sound with extraneous percussion overdubs in an apparent attempt to target the dance audience.

[tazzboy]

The clearest example is the transformation of the El Paso track "Keep On Dancing" (a clear hybrid of Ritchie Valens' and Buddy Holly's styles) into the A-side of the Four's fourth Del-Fi single, "Let Her Dance". Keane recalls, "We tried to do it with a little Tex-Mex feel, all those bass runs. Randy was tapping away on a beer bottle…and it was sounding pretty good in the booth. I said, 'That's it! That's the sound!' The sound we got, with the beer bottle and all that stuff, Bobby didn't like it. He didn't like anything."

Small wonder: a quick comparison between the original "Keep On Dancing" and the final "Let Her Dance" reveals that the former is a delightful driving, melodic rock track and the latter is a plodding, leaden groove tacked onto an otherwise good song.

Regardless, the resulting single went to the top spot under somewhat suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles but missed the national top 40, and the release was confused when Liberty records released their own version of the single a month after Del-Fi. Keane explains the havoc this way: "My partner was playing gold with Al Bennett, who owned Liberty…he told 'em I had this terrific song they should hear.

Then Bennett called me up, and he said 'I'd like to talk to you about putting it out here.' I thought he was bull****tin' me, you know, because we were releasing the 45 that week. I thought they wanted to distribute the record.

Then about a week later, they had already pressed up copies for radio…He sent over a contract for me to sign. I took one look at it, and he'd slipped in this clause about having an option of the first Bobby Fuller Four album…which I definitely didn't agree to, 'cause we were going to put out an album next."

The debut album was a project that Keane worked on a few times, first assembling a batch of surf instrumentals, a few covers, and singles tracks into a proposed "Drag album" (as in "drag racing"). This never came together, though, so Keane set up a deal with LA radio station KRLA to issue an album as a promotional LP to feature the station's call letters on the front cover.

The resultant album, KRLA King Of The Wheels, was a hodgepodge of tracks intended for the "Drag album" and previously issued singles, containing twelve solid tracks but hardly showcasing the best the Four had to offer with its overemphasis on instrumentals.

Keane had previously negotiated the band into a promotional appearance in a wacky teen flick, The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini, with Nancy Sinatra, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone among others.

It might have been a useful promotional vehicle for the group, but when they arrived on the set they found that they'd be lip-synching someone else's song and were even forced to pretend to play Vox equipment instead of their own familiar Fender gear.

The bizarre promo **** seems to be best exemplified by the sudden success of the "Let Her Dance" single, which, to hear Bob Keane talk, succeeded purely on the basis of being a great record, largely due to his production.

Randy Fuller, though, tells a different story: "Bob Keane gets this new partner…A lot of people have claimed that he was affiliated with--and P.J.'s, where we worked--were affiliated with the mob, you know. I just know what I know, and I know what Bobby told me one time, but he never mentioned 'the mob'.

But he did mention some other things; crooked, I'll put it that way, crooked. Because, you know, to get a record on KRLA or KFWB was almost impossible for an unknown band. When this guy said he was gonna do these things for us, we were just kinda laughing under our jackets a little there, you know, 'Sure, he's not gonna do that." And all of a sudden, he says, 'You boys listen to the radio at one o'clock today. Your record's gonna be on there.' We're like, 'Sure, sure.'

So we're drivin' down the street and 'Let Her Dance' came on…" Whatever they did to promote "Let Her Dance", it apparently wasn't repeated for the followup single, "Never To Be Forgotten"/"You Kiss Me" because didn't duplicate its predecessor's success despite being one of the cases where Keane's production dovetailed perfectly with the BF4's power: "Never To Be Forgotten" is the most stunning single example of Bobby's work, successfully fusing the pure West Texas-derived rock & roll sound with a beautifully melodic song featuring evocative lyrics and layered-in and reverbed-out vocal backings, psychedelic pop and kickass rock at the same time--in short, it's great art, and you can dance to it.

The next single apparently didn't require any fakey promotional stunts or backroom dealings: it jumped into the national charts immediately following its release, eventually peaking at #9 four months after its release, and has stayed in consistent radio rotation ever since.

"I Fought The Law" was the song that brought the biggest audience response at the BF4's shows, and Bobby relished the chance to get another shot at the song in higher-tech surroundings. Randy claims "it was my idea to do the song from the beginning.

Years ago, 1962-63, Bobby said 'Listen to this Crickets album I found, ' and he played it for me, and I said, 'If I was gonna cut a song from there I'd do 'I Fought the Law'--even though it sounded horrible--'cause I bet that song would be a hit"; the BF4 would eventually cut three tracks from that album, The Crickets In Style: "Law", "Love's Made A Fool Of You", and "Baby My Heart" (also by "Law" writer Sonny Curtis, the replacement for Holly is that version of the Crickets).

[tazzboy]

The resulting "I Fought the Law" finally broke the band nationally in 1965, but despite this (or perhaps because of it) Keane was back to brainstorming promotional stunts. Keane set up a "Celebrity Night" at P.J.'s, a club that frequently booked the BF4, and invited Hollywood celebrities with the intention of photographing the band with the celebrities for the cover of a proposed live album.

The "Celebrity Night at P.J.'s" album was taped December 3, 1965, and stars like Ann-Margret, Ryan O'Neal, Sally Field, and Nancy Sinatra duly posed with Bobby (although not the rest of the band), and documents the BF4's complete set. The focus is less on the BF4's music than trying to keep the crowd dancing, as Randy explains: "See, we had a good dance groove…at P.J.'s that was the main thing. That dance floor was always packed with wild dancing, people just goin' crazy."

Accordingly, keeping in mind their audience's limited familiarity with their music they limited their own material to the only two songs they could reasonably expect the audience to know: "I Fought the Law" and "Let Her Dance", with exceptions made for Bobby's gorgeous ballad "A New Shade Of Blue" (an exception both in being an unfamiliar original and in being a slow song) and surf instrumental "Thunder Reef".

Their set that night was mostly uptempo covers, often segued together to keep the beat going, ranging from classic-even-then material by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and (of course) Buddy Holly to the contemporaneous Beatles' "Anytime At All" to dancehall and garage band favorites "Do You Wanna Dance" and "California Sun". From the sound of things, though, the celebrity factor seems to have worked against the dance groove, as it sounds like more people are talking than dancing or listening to the music, most likely talking about the celebrities in attendance.

By the end of the set, between-song applause has dwindled to minimal levels while conversations continue, seemingly oblivious to the band churning away behind them. The proposed live LP was shelved, purportedly due to dissatisfaction with the representation of the BF4's live sound; plans at the time were to try again at the same club later, but is never happened.

Regardless of the P.J.'s debacle, 1966 finally saw the release of a solid Bobby Fuller Four album, the appropriately named I Fought The Law. Del-Fi cherry-picked the best seven tracks from the KRLA album, added the BF4's smash breakthrough hit and four additional great songs, and the result was a killer from top to bottom, consistently impressive and confident despite being saddled with a goofy cover shot of the band wearing wacky uniforms (Randy recalled "I hated that suit--it made your ass stick out") posing on some kind of odd ladder arrangement.

The all-for-one spirit of the band was already eroding, though: drummer DeWayne Quirico was missing band rehearsals and meetings, and showing up late to gigs. DeWayne was fired after one late arrival too many, and Bobby called back home to El Paso to convince former drummer Dalton Powell to rejoin the group.

After talking it over with his wife, Powell agreed to come out and joined up with the band just in time to record the followup single to "I Fought The Law". "Love's Made A Fool of You" was written and demoed by Bobby's hero Buddy Holly before his plane crash, and Bobby felt it would make an excellent single and tribute to Holly--the song even contains the distinctive ringing guitar chord figure that features so prominently in the intro and breaks of "I Fought the Law". The song didn't ascend to the heights scaled by its predecessor, but it did make a significant showing on the national charts, peaking at #26.

All during their existence, the BF4 had made a point of playing out as much as possible, priding themselves on their tight live sound and their ability to reproduce their records in performance.

It stands to reason, then, that their first national tour would have been an event of some importance to them. Keane booked a six week tour that encompassed a wide variety of venues, from the April 9th kickoff date in a Grand Rapids, Michigan high school gym to a railroad stockyard appearance during a rainstorm to a two-week engagement at New York City discotheque Ondine's, nighttime stomping grounds for Andy Warhol and his Factory crew.

Randy relates, "It was a rollercoaster ride, man, just a series of ups and downs. One minute we'd be playing a really great show where everyone loved us and loved our music, and the next show would be a total disaster, where we felt lucky to get out of there.

The one I remember best was in Madison, Wisconsin. We got there late, and these big 'ol farmboys were all standin' out front, lookin' pissed off, and they said 'You guys better be better than that last bunch that was in here [the Turtles had been been there right before us] or we're gonna whip everybody's ass.' So we hooked up, started playin'…and they just ate it up. They didn't care if we were two hours late. They just couldn't have been nicer."

During a break in the tour, the band jetted back to L.A. to record their next single, a Motown-esque number written by Ted Daryll, who had written the then-current hit by the Shangri-Las, "He Cried". Bobby was opposed to this further alteration of the BF4's sound, and Keane says the sessions were a constant battle between him and Bobby: "Bobby said 'The Magic Touch' didn't sound like one of his songs".

Furthermore, he knew they wouldn't be able to reproduce the single's sound live, as it had been tweaked by Keane and his new A&R man Barry White (yes, future "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love" bedroom soul auteur Barry White), who also added drums to the track, and mixed without Bobby's involvement.

Thanks to White's help, the song is largely successful in its own right, but sounds very little like the Bobby Fuller Four, and certainly nothing like "I Fought the Law" or West Texas rockabilly. The single was released anyway while the band headed back out on the road to finish the tour, but the conditions had gone from bad to worse with poorly promoted, under-advertised and sparsely attended shows--soon, the once-tight unit began talking seriously about breaking up at the end of the tour.

[tazzboy]

After Bobby canceled the last week of the tour during an argument with the club's owner, the band flew home to LA and played another of Casey Kasem's Teen Dances on July 10, 1966; it would be the last time the Bobby Fuller Four would ever play together.

A photo from the concert reportedly shows that the always clean-cut Bobby had begun to grow a goatee, maybe reflecting his knowledge of the changing times.

In an interview, he'd earlier talked about the changes evident on the local scene: "The Hollywood strip has gone psychedelic crazy--the kids, the clubs, the whole effect of hallucination…I think all the reporters should go on writing about LSD and its effects, and let the people decide for themselves whether or not they should take it. One thing I know is that you are completely aware of what you're doing, but it's intensified into unreality…"

Indeed, Bobby had experimented with acid once and intended to try it again; his brother Randy says "the thing about Bobby was that he liked intelligence--he was very intelligent, and if anything had 'intelligence' tacked on to it, he was gonna do it. He told me, 'Man, the way that LSD works, if you're really intelligent, if doesn't affect you.'"

A friend of Bobby's who was then a call-girl working under the name 'Melody' says Bobby's acid test took place at her home: "About a week before he died, he came over to my place and said he was going to experiment with it, and asked if he could stay the night. I tried to talk him out of it. He'd taken his [LSD] and he had his headphones on--he liked to listen to my stereo with headphones on--and he was trying to write songs, but it didn't work. He kept getting up to go outside and walk around, and I kept goin' out there and bringing him back in."

When the band arrived home from the tour, guitarist Jim Reese found his Vietnam draft notice waiting for him--another harbinger of changing times. Since the band seemed to be dissolving anyway and he figured snazzy transportation wou