Retired County Commissioner Inducted into West Texas Walk of Fame

LUBBOCK, TX — The String-A-Longs, the Plainview instrumental band whose 1961 hit “Wheels” sold millions of copies and was covered more than 100 times, were inducted Thursday into the West Texas Walk of Fame.

Founding bassist Aubrey de Cordova of San Angelo was one of the Plainview High School friends who started the group. Civic Lubbock held the free induction ceremony at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center Theatre.

The 2026 class also includes Dr. Susan Brumfield, Jim Eppler, Andy Hedges and Steve Moss. Plaques for the class will join earlier inductees at the Buddy and Maria Elena Holly Plaza, at 19th Street and Crickets Avenue.

Aubrey de Cordova

De Cordova was born in 1941 in Los Angeles. His family returned to Texas while he was still a baby. His father joined the Army Air Corps, served in the Pacific and was listed missing in action near the end of the war. His mother remarried, and he grew up in Plainview.

He told an interviewer in 2004 that the first instrument he wanted to play was the fiddle. A country show changed his mind, and he took up guitar. The String-A-Longs, under every name the group used, was the only band he played in. He graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

After the band, he finished college and went to work for a San Angelo telephone company. He retired from GTE/Verizon. He was active for decades in Texas Republican politics and in the San Angelo Parental Rights Organization, the group that led the 2001 effort to remove San Angelo ISD Superintendent Joe Gonzales.

De Cordova served three terms as Tom Green County commissioner for Precinct 2, the southeast part of the county. He was sworn in Jan. 1, 2007, and gaveled his last meeting closed in December 2018 after announcing he would not seek another term. At that meeting he said serving as commissioner was the highest honor of his career.

On the court he was involved in construction of the Stephens Central Library downtown, renovation of the county’s Keyes Building, construction of the county jail, renovation of the Michael D. Brown Justice Center, purchase and renovation of the county facility at 3020 N. Bryant, and road work that included paving Door Key Road.

He is married to Cheryl de Cordova, district director for state Sen. Charles Perry and a former district director for state Rep. Drew Darby. They have two grown children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

From the Patio Kids to a worldwide hit

De Cordova, lead guitarist Richard Stephens and rhythm guitarist Keith McCormack formed the band in 1956 as a three-piece called the Patio Kids. They later played as the Rock ’n’ Rollers and the Leen Teens, and were joined by guitarist Jimmy Torres and drummer Don Allen.

The group started recording in Amarillo and by the late 1950s was working at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico, the same room that produced Buddy Holly. In 1960 Petty became their manager, suggested the name The String-A-Longs, and helped them sign with Warwick Records.

In December 1960 they released “Wheels,” from the debut album “Pick a Hit.” The instrumental reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, finished as the No. 8 selling single of 1961, hit No. 8 in the United Kingdom, and went to No. 1 in Belgium, the Netherlands and West Germany. Over the years it sold more than 7 million copies worldwide.

The band followed with “Brass Buttons,” which reached No. 35, and “Should I,” which reached No. 42, both in 1961, from the second album “Matilda.” They toured with the Everly Brothers, Marty Robbins and Roy Orbison.

A 2004 Plainview Daily Herald story, written as Torres tried to reunite the original lineup, already had de Cordova in San Angelo on bass. A 2010 Herald account said he had found his career with the San Angelo telephone company.

The rest of the 2026 class

Dr. Susan Brumfield, educator, author and composer, has taught music education at Texas Tech for three decades. Her Kodály-based series “First, We Sing!” is used in elementary music classrooms across the country. She has published more than 40 choral works, including the widely performed “No Time,” and in 2004 founded the West Texas Children’s Chorus, which has sung at Carnegie Hall and on the 2022 Cherry Blossom Parade broadcast.

Jim Eppler, a visual artist born in El Paso, earned a BFA in studio art at Texas Tech after moving to Lubbock. His wildlife sculptures are in collections that include the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Benson Sculpture Garden in Colorado. In September 2025 the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, unveiled his commissioned bronze of a pair of mule deer, “Attraction.” He has also made commissioned portraits for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and artwork for MCA, Mercury and Chappell.

Andy Hedges, cowboy songster and performer, was born in Lubbock in 1980 and raised in an old farmhouse in Tokio, in Terry County, where his family looked after cattle. He was named Academy of Western Artists Male Cowboy Poet of the Year in 2004, won a Western Heritage Wrangler Award in 2019, and took International Western Music Association Album of the Year in 2022. Before his death, Western Music Association Hall of Fame inductee Don Edwards said Hedges could carry the tradition after “all of us old guys are gone.”

Steve Moss, producer and director, grew up in Lubbock and in 1964 was a founding member of The Chaparels. In 1980 he, Joe Ely and the city’s parks department produced the first Tornado Jam at Buddy Holly Park. Attendance grew from more than 10,000 to more than 35,000 by 1982, when the bill included Joan Jett, The Crickets, Bobby Keys and the Maines Brothers. He later opened Los Colinas Studios in Dallas, produced the Texas Music Awards for three years, and has worked festivals including Coachella, SXSW and Austin City Limits, plus documentaries on Peter Frampton, Alicia Keys and Hilary Duff, and the IMAX film “Katy Perry – The Lifetimes Tour Live from Paris.”

The Walk of Fame, established in 1979 with Buddy Holly as the first inductee, honors people with a strong tie to Lubbock and West Texas whose work in the performing or visual arts has carried national influence. Civic Lubbock has administered it since 1983.