Robert Gordon, the punk-rock singer who became a pivotal figure in the rockabilly revival, died Tuesday at the age of 75. His label, Cleopatra Records, announced his death.

Gordon’s family recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with his treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, which had caused Gordon to cancel a planned summer tour.

In the mid-1970s, Gordon, with a romantic baritone, a trove of early rock songs to interpret and an ace sidekick on guitar—Link Wray, Chris Spedding and Danny Gatton, among others—emerged as a keeper of the flame of rock’s foundation, musically and visually recalling his idols, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley.

Prior to releasing Robert Gordon With Link Wray and Fresh Fish Special, which included the first—and definitive—version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” Gordon sang with the New York punk band Tuff Darts, sharing bills with the likes of Blondie and Television at CBGB and other locales.

Richard Gottehrer, a Brill Building veteran, heard Gordon interpret Presley and convinced him to lean on the rockabilly of his youth and ditch the punk act. Private Stock released his first two albums, which led to a deal with RCA that latest for three albums.

Gordon recorded sporadically after 1981’s Are You Gonna Be the One, his biggest-selling album, which boasts his biggest hit, a version of Marshall Crenshaw’s “Someday, Someway.”

In a Facebook post, Crenshaw remembered: “I used to take the train from Pelham into Manhattan with a sack of cassette tapes and walk around dropping them off here and there—with receptionists at music-publishing companies, record companies, with would-be record producers, actual record producers, etc., etc. I got callbacks on these things immediately, but the first crucial one came from Robert Gordon. The memory of his voice on my answering machine is still clear as a bell in my mind, as if it just happened; getting that call was a big BEFORE and AFTER moment in my life. A couple weeks after that, I was in the Record Plant in N.Y. with Robert, producer Richard Gotterher, Danny Gatton, Chris Spedding, Gary Tallent, Anton Fig, Thom Panunzio, the whole gang of record makers—another BEFORE and AFTER moment in my life courtesy of RG.”

Cleopatra will release Gordon’s final album, Hellafied, which features Spedding, on 11/25.