J. Frank Wilson had only one hit, but it was a huge one. With his band the Cavaliers, he brought Wayne Cochran's teen-death melodrama, "Last Kiss," to the upper reaches of the American pop charts in the fall of 1964. The song was the last in a long line of teen tragedies that were popular in the U.S. during the early 1960s.{1}

Born in Lufkin, Texas, in 1941, Wilson began his professional recording career almost by accident. Upon his discharge from the Air Force, Wilson came in contact with the Cavaliers, a rock & roll band that had been around since 1955. They played as an instrumental group around their hometown of San Angelo, Texas for a while, before deciding to add a singer. They heard about Wilson through the grapevine and after an audition, they hired him.