\n<\/p>\n
In 1960, Mr. Van Eaton left Sun to join Mr. Riley and the guitarist Roland Janes, both of whom were disenchanted with how Mr. Riley was being promoted, as the staff drummer at the newly formed Rita Records. Their biggest success came with the singer Harold Dorman\u2019s 1960 Top 40 hit, \u201cMountain of Love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Van Eaton also released a single under his own name for Rita, an atmospheric, surf-style recording called \u201cBeat-Nik,\u201d also from 1960. By the middle of the decade, however, he had all but retired from the music business. He worked for his father-in-law\u2019s vending machine company before establishing himself as an asset manager in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Mr. Van Eaton performed only occasionally over the ensuing decades, appearing at rockabilly reunion concerts and playing on the soundtrack of the 1989 movie \u201cGreat Balls of Fire!,\u201d<\/a> which starred Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis. (The singer Mojo Nixon<\/a>, who died this month, played Mr. Van Eaton onscreen.) He also did periodic session work into the 2020s at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. In 1998, he released \u201cThe Beat Goes On,\u201d an album featuring his drumming, vocals and songwriting.<\/p>\n