Jerry Cochran Bio

Jerry was born and raised in Beebe, Arkansas. At around age 10, his Uncle Milbourn gave him an old beat-up guitar. That started it all!

He would ride his bareback pony, with guitar in hand, to visit Hollis Allen, a local Professional musician. Hollis would give Jerry guitar lessons and taught him how to play songs such as "The Wildwood Flower", among others.

At age 12 he entered a talent contest at the local annual "Strawberry Festival" and won first place, ($15.-) A lot of money for a 12 year old kid in 1955!

That kinda sealed his fate as far as Jerry wanting to become a Musician.

In 1960, Jerry and his cousin, Gerald Hughes drove over to Memphis to visit Graceland and possibly get a glimpse of Elvis! But.....Elvis was in Hollywood filming "GI Blues" So, Jerry and Gerald hung around Graceland that afternoon talking to Travis Smith who worked as Gate Guard and was Elvis' Uncle.

Jerry mentioned to Travis that he was a musician. Travis then said his son, Billy Smith, was trying to get a band together and asked Jerry if he may be interested in joining Billy's new band.

After meeting with Billy, Jerry decided to go ahead and give it a try. Jerry went back to Beebe and loaded up his Equipment and some clothes and moved to Memphis and lived with Billy and his family there in Whitehaven.

The first night Jerry met Elvis was a very exciting time! Elvis and Jerry got along very well from the very beginning. When Elvis was in town, Billy & Jerry were at Graceland every night visiting with Elvis. A super exciting time in Jerry's life!

One of many highlights of this time was when Elvis called down to Sun Studios and set up a recording session for Billy & Jerry at the old Original "Sun Studios". To top that off, Scotty Moore was in the control room that day! WOW !!!

Jerry moved to California in the mid 60's and taught Guitar at Peggy's Music School in Redondo Beach until 1969.

In June of 1969, Jerry was called into the Army and was sent to Ludwigsburg, Germany. After his release from the army, Jerry remained in Germany and married his German sweetheart, Karin. He then started a band "The Trailriders" and played Military and Civilian clubs all over Southern Germany from 1970 until 1979.

In 1972, Jerry opened his Booking/Talent Agency (Cochran Talent Agency). He booked many other Bands & DJ's in Southern Germany.

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In 1979, Jerry moved back to the USA. He was totally burnt out on playing music after spending almost 10 years playing 3 to 5 nights a week.

Jerry moved to Houston and started a Delivery Service (EDS) in 1980 with his old friend Gene Heflin.

In 1986 Gene had to retire due to medical reasons, so Gene & Jerry sold their delivery service to Central Delivery service.

After being away from music for almost 7 years, Jerry opened his "Cove Recording Studio" in 1987. It was a little 16 track studio doing mostly Demos for songwriters. In 1995 another business opportunity came along. Mike Martini, a good friend of Jerry's asked Jerry if he would be interested in becoming partners with him in his business of installing Home Theater Systems, Satellite & Phone systems. Jerry agreed and within two years, Jerry had no time for his studio. The studio was not a big money maker, so Jerry sold off most all of his studio equipment in 1997 and devoted full time to the other business (Hi Fi Doc). In 2005, Mike Martini died from ALS so this business was sold and Jerry retired.

Wanting to be in/around music in some way,

Jerry started collecting guitars and started "Jerry's Guitar Boutique" as a hobby/business in 2005.

That kinda brings us up to the present time.

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Jerry has met many Artists & Stars over the years and also worked

with many of them on their European Tours.

To Name a few:

Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, Teddy Riedel

Don Gibson, Carl Perkins, D.J. Fontana, Gene Simmons, Sonny Burgess,

Tommy Overstreet, Barbara Mandrell, Hank Thompson,Tommy Cash,

Little Jimmy Dickins. Dottie West, Red Steagall, Hank Locklin,