Gene Vincent’s excruciating steel leg secret
For a musician, keeping a secret normally involves some kind of illicit affair or top-secret new song. It was more difficult to hide when that secret was worn physically on your body, as in the case of one Gene Vincent.
In the earliest emergence of rock and roll, Vincent was signed to Capitol Records as he possessed a certain effervescence, a certain swagger, and most importantly, was seen as the next big thing and protégé to Elvis Presley. That suaveness and swivel of the hips had taken the world by storm, and they simply needed more.
It was something Vincent carried by the bucketload, whether in the blistering sound of his iconic hit ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’ or the powerful stance he inhabited on stage, with his left leg rigidly bent off to the side wherever he stood. But on this latter point, it wasn’t just a mark of style or rock and roll enigma: the stance of the leg was a pure medical necessity.
You’d have to look all the way back to 1955, when the future star was just 20 years old, to find the real roots of this bizarre tale. Vincent had been enlisted in the Navy for a few years prior, but rather than gaining his injury as a war hero in Korea, he was instead involved in a motorcycle crash in Norfolk.
The results were catastrophic – Vincent’s leg was shattered so badly that doctors tried to persuade him to amputate – but the man was undeterred. He decided he would wear a steel brace for the rest of his days, and hence, the iconic stance of his one rigid leg was born, for better or for worse, even if he told people it was caused by stepping on a mine in the navy.
To be clear, this is not an attempt to paint the tale of Vincent’s life in a hue of total tragedy: the years that followed in the remainder of the ‘50s were laced with stardom, becoming a quick rockabilly staple and producing no less than six albums with his band in the space of three years. Then, when the ‘60s rolled around, it was the British shores that called for a new lease of life, with Vincent playing shows with a range of little-known bands such as The Beatles.
Yet the repercussions of choosing not to lose the leg all those years before always haunted Vincent. He was blighted by chronic pain, persistent and gnawing, which made it more and more difficult to do the job he loved best as time went on. It also didn’t help matters that, in 1960, he was involved in the very same car crash that took the life of his rocking counterpart, Eddie Cochran.
It was only natural, over the course of the decade or so that followed, that Vincent became progressively worn down more and more by the pain. Masking these troubles with the armour of alcohol, it meant that while his career was still soaring in the UK up until the late ‘60s, things were quickly unravelling behind the scenes.
After returning to live in his US homeland, Vincent tripped over at his parents’ house and ruptured a stomach ulcer, leading him to pass away on October 2nd, 1971, aged just 36. As irony would have it, it wasn’t the leg itself that eventually took him away – but it was clear that the steely strut was the thorn in his side for the better part of a lifetime.
