a logical progression. Hell, he looked like a casino. Wayne and the Riders landed at the Flamingo Hotel. Stars came. He palled around with Ann-Margaret and Evel Knievel. Opened for Elvis at the Hilton. Cochran maintained he upped Presley’s style when he gifted him a couple of extravagant Nudie suits–and when Wayne switched to jumpsuits, the King soon followed. “I got to meet him and be friends with him,” said Cochran, still in awe. One day Presley minion Red West gave him a gift from Elvis—a TCB (Takin’ Care of Business) necklace. Wayne figured it was just the cheap version he sold at his shows, but decades later he took it to a jeweler who informed him it was solid gold. “I felt so special, that he gave me a real gold one that he only gave to special friends,” he said, lifting it from his neck to show me. “Isn’t that great?”
The pompadour of soul Wayne Cochran and bearded Elvis Presley circa 1969.
Wayne Cochran retired from music to become an evangelist minister in Miami, Florida. He died on November 21, 2017, in Miramar, Florida, from cancer at the age of 78.
