LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ricky Nelson: Rick Nelson
built 277 days ago
Ricky Nelson, auch bekannt als Rick Nelson (* 8. Mai 1940 in Teaneck, New Jersey als Eric Hilliard Nelson; † 31. Dezember 1985 in De Kalb, Texas), war einer der ersten Teenagerstars in den Vereinigten Staaten.
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In 1985, Nelson joined a nostalgia rock tour of England. It was a major success, and it revived some interest in his work. He tried to duplicate that effect in the United States, and he began a tour of the South. While on that tour, on his way to a New Year's Eve concert in Dallas, Texas, he died in a plane crash in De Kalb, Texas. Nelson was buried in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Coincidentally, the last song he sang on stage before his death was Buddy Holly's "Rave On" (Holly too perished in a plane crash).
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In 1969 Nelson finally took the plunge, quite cabaret and began playing rock clubs with a new backing group, The Stone Canyon Band. Among its early members were Randy Meisner (later of Poco and the Eagles), Steve Love (who later joined Roger McGuinn) and steel guitarist Tom Brumley, a refugee from country star buck Owens' backing group, the Buckaroos. By now committed to the sound of country rock, Nelson refused to be limited by it, as the first hit of his revived career - a stripped-down version of Dylan's "She Belongs To Me' (1969) - demonstrated. A further indication of his returning confidence came with his first albums of the new decade: a live album, "Rick Nelson In Concert", and "Rick Sings Nelson" (1970) which provided another hit with "Easy To Be Free," a key expression of the honest individualism that was to give him his biggest hit of the Seventies, "Garden Party" (1972). "Rudy The Fifth," released in the previous year, had been Nelson's 27th album and saw him continuing in a country direction. "I always wanted to be Carl Perkins" was a later quote.
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At 21, Ricky shortened his professional first name to "Rick" and moved to a more "mature" pop-country style; the hits soon dried up, and Nelson found himself on the "oldies" circuit. He formed the Stone Canyon Band, a pioneering "country-rock" outfit, but when crowds booed his new material at a 1971 revival show, he responded with a bitter self-penned song entitled "Garden Party." Ironically, it became his last big hit. Nelson and his fiancee died in a plane crash on New Year's Eve 1985.
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During his childhood, Ricky suffered with asthma attacks, and grew up thin and sickly. However beginning with his 1952 television debut he went from a scrawny twelve year old prankster to a rakishly charming young man in 1956. A modest young man Ricky was remembered as quiet and well behaved at Bancroft Junior High. In 1954, he enrolled at Hollywood High School and was an average student. By this time, he was earning a $100,00 annual salary from the TV show.
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From 1957 to 1962, Nelson had thirty Top-40 hits, more than any other artist at the time except Elvis Presley (who had 53) and Pat Boone (who had 38). Many of Nelson's early records were double hits with both the A side and the B side hitting the Billboard charts. When Billboard introduced the Hot 100 chart on August 4, 1958, Nelson's single "Poor Little Fool" became the first song ever in the #1 position on that chart.
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Rick Nelson