Freddy Cannon, Early Rocker With 3 Top Ten Singles, Dies

Freddy Cannon died on July 17, 2026.

Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, a singer-songwriter and guitarist, who earned three Top 10 pop singles and who holds the record for the most appearances (110) on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, died July 17, 2026, at a California hospice facility. He was 89. His longtime friend, iHeart Radio’s Tom Cuddy, confirmed that Cannon passed after a very brief bout with cancer.

Frederick Anthony Picariello Jr. was born on Dec. 4, 1936, in Lynn, Mass., and lived in the state till his late teens when he and his wife Jeanette moved to Philadelphia on the encouragement of Dick Clark, who at the time produced his daily American Bandstand broadcast for ABC-TV from there.

Clark became aware of Cannon as a result of his first Top 10 record, 1959’s “Tallahassee Lassie,” which originated from a poem his mom wrote and he put to music. That ultimately led to 29 of his recordings landing on the Billboard Hot 100, including two other Top 10 hits, 1962’s “Palisades Park” and 1959’s “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.”

His other hits included “Action,” “Transistor Sister,” and “Abigail Beecher.”

Once after seeing Cannon perform in the U.K., musician Robert Plant came backstage and told Cannon, “I love ‘Tallahassee Lassie’ so much that before we named ourselves Led Zeppelin, we recorded a blues version of it.”

Author Stephen King noted, “On a Webcor turntable growing up I played my 45s by Elvis, Chuck Berry and Freddy Cannon.” King mentioned Cannon’s music in four of his books.

Over a career that spanned 70 years, the former truck driver worked and performed with some of the top musical performers of that time: Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chubby Checker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Connie Francis and Brenda Lee.

Over the decades Cannon performed on many of the popular music TV shows of that era, including Shindig, The Midnight Special, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and others

He was scheduled to do what would have been his final interview on July 11 with longtime friend and legendary NYC DJ “Cousin Brucie” Morrow, but he was brought to the hospital the day before.

Cannon is survived by his children Conny and Billy, his sister Mary Lou, his son-in-law Jim and daughter-in-law Beth, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He is pre-deceased by his son, John, who died earlier this year. His high school sweetheart and wife, Jeanette, passed on September 25, 2024. Cannon was working on music at his home in Oxnard, Calif., right up to his death.

Cannon wrote a biography with Mark Bego in 2011 entitled Where the Action Is.

His friend, Cuddy, noted, “I met Freddy through a concert he did in Providence for WPRO, a radio station I was programming in the early 80s and we had remained friends ever since. I had never seen a performer who kept his performance so upbeat and fun. Freddy didn’t do ballads. Dick Clark once told me that every time he hosted an oldies concert, he asked Freddy to open it, because he knew Freddy would get the audience on their feet with up-tempo rock and roll.”

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