A flamboyant rock’n’roll singer whose stage antics led him to be described as “downright vulgar” and “ten times worse than Elvis Presley”, Bobby Lee Trammell eventually became a respected member of the Arkansas state legislature.

Trammell’s most famous song was Shirley Lee, a number he cut in 1957 that was later covered by Ricky Nelson. Without ever breaking into the big time, he kept up a steady touring and recording schedule during the late Fifties and early Sixties, and responded to the British beat group invasion by billing himself as “the first American Beatle”. But an effort to rekindle his career in Europe in 1984 ended ingloriously.

Born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in 1934, Trammell was raised on a small cotton farm. His father had been a professional fiddle player and his mother played the organ in church. He was encouraged to sing at church services but he also sneaked off to the Pentecostal church in Jonesboro to watch its black congregation. “They’d get so carried away that they’d be rolling in the dust. I just felt the music and would be there shaking and having fun,” he said later.

By the age of 14 he was singing country songs at school. He embarked on a professional career after the rockabilly singer Carl Perkins invited him up on stage to sing with his band at a concert in Jonesboro. Perkins gave him an introduction to Sam Phillips, at the famous Sun studio in Memphis, who advised Trammell to keep rehearsing and to come back to see him in a few weeks.

Trammell however could not wait and, in the first of a series of missed opportunities that dogged his career, he headed for California where he got a day job with the Ford Motor Company. At night he would play at the Jubilee Ballroom in Baldwin Park, where his popularity attracted veteran promoter and record man Fabor Robinson, who saw Trammell as a possible rival to Elvis Presley.

“He come over after I’d done my show and asked if I’d like to make $1 million. I told him that I wasn’t interested as I was earning £225 a week at the Ford Motor Company and a further $75 a week here, which was $275 more than I could have made in Arkansas,” Trammell said. But eventually persuaded, Trammell recorded the self-penned Shirley Lee for Robinson’s label, Fabor, in 1957. When it began to sell it was leased to the larger ABC label, selling a reported 250,000 copies. The follow-up did less well and Trammell’s wild stage act also began to began to attract notoriety. “He’d jump up and down, scream and holler, grab the microphone and throw off his clothes; yeah, the whole works,” recalled fellow rockabilly star Mac Curtis.

And his wild antics were not just confined to the stage. When a radio disc jockey on Radio KFWB in Los Angeles reneged on a promise to play his record, Trammell, wearing a red suit and with his guitar strung over his back, started to climb the station’s tower. As he got near to the top it started to disintegrate and he had to cling on. Meanwhile, two of his colleagues, the rock’n’roll singers Johnny and Dorsey Burnette were telling the crowd that had gathered that it was a sucide attempt. Eventually, after his guitar had fallen off and hit a waiting police officer, he was escorted down and taken to jail.

He contined to record for a number of small labels and responded to the arrival of the Beatles in America by growing his hair long and releasing a song called New Dance in France that was aimed at the pop market. The record also saw release in the UK on Guy Stevens’s Sue label.

Trammell moved into the country market in the 1970s before accepting an invitation to appear at a rock’n’roll festival in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1984 where he hoped to relaunch his career. Midway through his act he attempted to leap on to the piano, but he landed awkwardly, lost his balance and fell off, breaking his wrist.

Abashed, Trammell returned to Arkansas where, in 1997 he was elected to the state house of representativies. He served three terms, but always rebuffed requests by the legislature to perform any of his songs. “He was afraid he’d revert back to his old ways,” said state senator Shane Broadway. He was also elected to the Craighead County Quorum Court.

His music remained popular with European rock fans and two CD collections of his work have been issued.

He leaves two daughters.

Bobby Lee Trammell, singer and politician, was born on January 31, 1934. He died on February 20, 2008, aged 74