By Randal HILL

Bobby Fuller’s music obsession began the moment he first saw Elvis Presley belting out “Heartbreak Hotel” on TV in 1956. At that moment the 14-year-old El Paso kid decided that one day he too would reach stardom just like the King. But when fellow Texan Buddy Holly exploded onto the music scene with his band the Crickets, Fuller switched his allegiance overnight. He loved – and copied – Holly’s playful yet confident delivery and frantic guitar playing.

With younger brother Randy on bass and friends on drums and another guitar, he assembled Bobby Fuller and the Fanatics. They became a top El Paso draw and even cut a few singles on some local labels. One was an early version of “I Fought the Law,” originally a track from a post-Buddy Holly album called “In Style with the Crickets.”

When the El Paso gigs dried up in the mid-1960s, Bobby and band motored to Hollywood and began knocking on doors.

Enter Bob Keane, a record-label owner who had discovered hitmaker Ritchie Valens. Since Valens’s death in a 1959 plane crash, Keane had been searching for a replacement teen-idol superstar. After meeting Bobby Fuller, he knew he had found his man.

Keane liked the band’s earlier “I Fought the Law” but decided to remake the tune – after creating the name Bobby Fuller Four for his new Mustang label – with a thicker, harder-driving sound that was more Beatles or Byrds than Buddy Holly. Keane proved himself right when his production of “I Fought the Law” reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in spring 1966.

Sadly, Bobby Fuller never lived to enjoy future stardom. In July 1966 he was found dead in his car near his Hollywood apartment. His body displayed numerous bruises and a gasoline-soaked rag was stuffed into his mouth. In a bizarre mystery that was never solved, the L.A. coroner incredibly ruled Fuller’s death a suicide.

Rolling Stone magazine once labeled the song “outlaw romanticism.” To many, “I Fought the Law” was a punk-music prototype that became the scorching 1979 debut single for the Clash, with lyrics that began:

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun

I fought the law and the law won.

What was the song really about? Sonny Curtis, who wrote the classic, explained:

“It has always amused me that people try to analyze it. I don’t mean to sound flippant, but I’ve never taken it that seriously. There was nothing other than my imagination that inspired me. I was alone in my living room one afternoon, trying to write a song. I was just pickin’ my guitar and letting my mind go, the way you do when you write a song. It only took about 20 minutes. I was trying to write a country song, something with a Johnny Cash feel. I’m just thankful that it stirs something in people and makes them like it, for whatever reason. I’ve always been grateful that the rock ‘n’ roll gods came through for me and helped me make it happen.”

  Randal HILL