Ricky Nelson managed
the unthinkable in popular culture. A Fifties
teen icon, he survived the changing tastes of viewers and music listeners to
return to musical respectability. Ricky had
stared on radio and television in his
family’s popular comedy “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett;” simultaneously
moved into recording, becoming one of the top pop music recorders of the late
1950s and early 1960s; then moved into major motion pictures, costarring with
John Wayne and Dean Martin. His
recording career languished as tastes changed, though he staged one last Top
Ten charge with the critically-well received “Garden Party” in 1972. His career fell into obscurity throughout the
1970s, but started to rebound with a renewed interest in the rockabilly sound
in the mid-1980s.
On
New Year’s Eve 1985, Nelson was flying from Guntersville, Alabama, to Dallas
for the next stop on a comeback tour when the cabin heater on the DC-3 he was
traveling in malfunctioned, causing a cabin fire to break out.
