Best Known As: The rock music pioneer who sang "Peggy Sue"
Name at birth: Charles Hardin Holley
Buddy Holly was an early star of rock music whose most famous songs are "That'll Be The Day" and "Peggy Sue." Holly jumped into rock 'n' roll from a background in country and western music. He played the guitar and sang, and he had a keen interest in recording studio production techniques; he is credited with being the first to use overdubbing and double-tracking. (Holly's backing band was known as the Crickets, which inspired Paul McCartney and John Lennon to name their band the Beatles.) Holly was killed in the crash of a small plane in 1959, shortly after performing a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. Killed in the same crash were fellow rockers Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.
Holly's fatal plane crash was recalled as "the day the music died" in Don McLean's song "American Pie"... Francis Ford Coppola borrowed Holly's song title for his 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married.
One of rock 'n' roll's founding fathers, Buddy Holly (1936-1959) recorded a highly influential body of work before his untimely death. Holly's unique mix of pop melodicism, aggressive rhythmic drive, and imaginative arrangement ideas directly inspired the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other bands in the coming decades.
At age 22, a fatal plane crash made Buddy Holly into an instant rock 'n' roll legend. His string of hit records - including "That'll Be the Day," "Peggy Sue," "Oh Boy!," and "Rave On" - had made him a celebrity in America and beyond. What proved to be remarkable about Holly was that his stature increased with time, rather than fading as was typical with pop music idols. His distinctive mix of rock 'n' roll, country, and R & B served to inspire a generation of younger artists and remained vital for decades to come. In terms of both his creative output and his stage persona, Holly helped to broaden the range of possibilities within the rock 'n' roll idiom.
Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas on September 7, 1936. The youngest of three children, he was nicknamed "Buddy" by his mother, Ella Drake Holley. His father, Larry Holley, worked at various times as a cook, carpenter, tailor, and clothing salesman. Holly showed an early interest in music, winning a local talent contest at age five. By age 11, he had taken piano lessons and was beginning to learn guitar. During his high school years, he performed regularly on a Lubbock radio station, first with Jack Neal, then with Bob Montgomery as a partner. Eventually, a group evolved that included Holly and Montgomery on guitar and Don Guess on acoustic bass. The combo - known as Buddy and Bob and, later, the Rhythm Playboys - played country music, although Holly was beginning to take an interest in R & B and blues as well. In January of 1955 Holly saw Elvis Presley perform in Lubbock, inspiring him to play rock 'n' roll. By the time he graduated high school that same year, he was already a popular performer on the local dance and club scene.
Recording Session with Producer Owen Bradley
Playing the country/rock hybrid dubbed "rockabilly," Holly and his group opened shows for Presley, Bill Haley, and other notable acts on tour in late 1955. After meeting talent scout Eddie Crandall, he signed a recording contract with Decca Records as a solo artist and, with Sonny Curtis replacing Montgomery on guitar, went to Nashville on January 26, 1956, to record four songs. Producing these sessions was Owen Bradley, later famous as the man behind the hits of Patsy Cline. After further touring on the country-music circuit, he recorded several more tunes, including "That'll Be the Day," a song co-written by Holly and newly recruited drummer Jerry Allison. None of the songs recorded for Decca attracted much attention, and he was released from his contract.
Undaunted, Holly took his band - now including rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan and re-named the Crickets - to the Clovis, New Mexico, studio of producer Norman Petty, known for his work with rockabilly artist Buddy Knox. In February 1957 the Crickets recorded new versions of "That'll Be the Day," "Maybe Baby," and several other tunes. Petty was impressed by the young musician's talent and attitude. "I was amazed at the intensity and honesty and sincerity of [Buddy's] whole approach to music," Petty later told author Philip Norman in an interview for Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly, "… . to see someone so honest and so completely himself was super-refreshing. He wasn't the world's most handsome guy, he didn't have the world's most beautiful voice, but he was himself."
The songs recorded at Petty's studio were turned down by Roulette, Columbia, RCA, and Atlantic Records before Holly placed them with Coral/Brunswick. Ironically, the label was a subsidiary of Decca, the same company that had dropped Holly the previous year. Because Decca owned the rights to the earlier recording of "That'll Be the Day," Brunswick credited the song to the Crickets upon its release in May 1957. The song was a slow-building hit, finally hitting the top of the U.S. singles charts on September 23. Holly and the Crickets spent the intervening months touring the country in package shows with other acts. They became one of the first white acts to perform at Harlem's famous Apollo Theater. Appearances on such television programs as American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show further increased their visibility. The band's first album, The Chirping Crickets, was released by Brunswick in November 1957. "That'll Be the Day" became a major hit in Britain as well, encouraging the Crickets to tour there in March 1958.
Began His Climb up the Charts
Further singles followed, some credited to Holly, others to the Crickets. "Peggy Sue," perhaps Holly's most recognizable song, reached number three on the U.S. singles chart in January of 1958. The song's rumbling beat and stark, clear-toned guitar playing were unique for the time, as were Holly's idiosyncratic, hiccup-accented vocals. "Oh Boy," "Maybe Baby," and "Rave On" continued his success into the spring and summer of that year. These and other Holly records represented major innovations in the still-fledgling rock 'n' roll genre. His use of multi-track recording techniques and reliance on largely self-written material were widely imitated. Rather than conforming to the rock 'n' roll sex symbol image popularized by Presley, the gangling, bespectacled Holly set a different standard for pop music stardom. The instrumental line-up of the Crickets - two guitars, bass, and drums - became the prototype of countless rock bands who followed a few years later.
Compared to such flamboyant rock 'n' roll peers as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, Holly led a conservative lifestyle. Playful and exuberant on stage, he was shy and introverted when not performing and was prone to taking long solitary drives in the Texas desert. His exterior meekness disguised an inner self-confidence and drive which grew as his success increased. The summer and fall of 1958 brought considerable changes in his life. On August 15, he married Maria Elena Santiago, a publishing company receptionist Holly had met in New York two months earlier. That October he parted company with producer/manager Petty and split with the Crickets as well. His career was heading in new directions: that fall he produced the first recording by a then-unknown Waylon Jennings and began experimenting with string section backup on his own recordings. In November 1958 he recorded four songs with the Dick Jacobs Orchestra - including the Paul Anka-composed "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and Holly's own "True Love Ways" - that found him moving away from frenetic rock 'n' roll and toward more polished pop balladry.
Tragedy in Iowa
In January 1959, Holly made what would prove to be his last recordings at his apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village. That same month, he embarked on a "Winter Dance Party" tour with a newly formed backup group which included guitarist and former Cricket Tommy Allsup, drummer Carl Bunch, and bassist Waylon Jennings. The tour, which also included such acts as J.P "Big Bopper" Richardson, Richie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts, stopped in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2. Tired of traveling in his poorly heated tour bus, Holly chartered a small Beechcraft Bonanza plane to travel to the next concert stop in Moorhead, Minnesota. The plane, carrying Richardson and Valens along with Holly, took off at one a.m. in severe winter weather. It crashed a few minutes later not far from the airfield, killing all on board.
News of Holly's death at age 22 sparked a genuine sense of loss in America, Great Britain, and elsewhere. The tragedy helped to make "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" a posthumous hit, the first of many to follow. In May of 1959 Coral Records released The Buddy Holly Story, a retrospective album that stayed on the charts for three years and became the label's biggest-selling release. Old Holly tunes revived or discovered included "Midnight Shift," "Peggy Sue Got Married," "True Love Ways," and "Learning the Game." Former producer Petty acquired the rights to a number of Holly's recordings and released them with over dubbed additional musicians. Holly's recordings remained in print and sold well, particularly in Great Britain where the "best of" collection 20 Golden Greats topped the charts in 1978.
The following decades demonstrated Holly's continued influence on popular music. Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones performed and recorded his songs at the start of their careers. Such rock artists as Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Bruce Springsteen acknowledged their creative debt to Holly in interviews. Singer/songwriter Don McLean's 1971 hit "American Pie" mourned his death as "the day the music died." Linda Ronstadt, the Knack, and Blondie were among the pop/rock artists who revived his tunes in the 1970s. In 1975 Paul McCartney purchased Holly's entire song catalogue and, a year later, commemorated the late singer's 40th birthday by launching "Buddy Holly Week" in Great Britain. Recognition continued into the 1980s, when Holly became one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's original inductees. Such tribute albums as 1989's Everyday Is a Holly Day and 1996's Notfadeaway: Remembering Buddy Holly featured new interpretations of his material. Holly's life was brought to the screen in the 1978 film The Buddy Holly Story, which earned lead actor Gary Busey an Academy Award nomination.
Over 40 years after Holly's death, his recordings continued to rank among the most significant in modern popular music. What course his work might have taken had he lived remains one of the great unanswered questions in rock 'n' roll history. Beyond such speculation, Holly's music continues to be played and enjoyed, and his presence missed.
Books
All Music Guide, edited by Michael Elewine, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Miller Freeman Books, 1997.
Contemporary Musicians, Volume 1, Gale, 1989.
Goldrosen, John, The Buddy Holly Story, Quick Fox, 1979.
Laing, Dave, Buddy Holly, Collier Books, 1972.
Norman, Philip, Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly, Simon& Schuster, 1996.
(born Sept. 7, 1936, Lubbock, Texas, U.S. — died Feb. 3, 1959, near Clear Lake, Iowa) U.S. singer and songwriter. He played in country music bands while in high school. Later switching to rock and roll (seerock music), Holly and his band, the Crickets, had hits in 1957 with songs such as "That'll Be the Day," "Peggy Sue," and "Oh, Boy!" Holly died at age 22 in a plane crash, along with the singers Richie Valens (b. 1941) and The Big Bopper (Jape Richardson, b. 1930). He left behind many recordings that were released posthumously, and he soon attained legendary stature; he was part of the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Rock and roll star Buddy Holly was born 70 years ago today. The man who sang "Peggy Sue" and "That'll Be the Day," Holly was only 22 when he was killed in a plane crash along with Richie Valens and "The Big Bopper " on February 3, 1959, "the day the music died." In 1986, Holly was among the first group of musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Holly, Buddy, 1936-59, American rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist, b. Lubbock, Tex., as Charles Hardin Holley. He performed country and western music while a teenager, but influenced by black rhythm and blues and by Elvis Presley he switched to the rock 'n' roll in the mid-1950s. His band, the Crickets, was one of the first to use the instrumentation that became the rock standard: two guitars, bass, and drums. Holly's sweet tenor with its frequent hiccuping hesitations, his melodic songs, and the group's innovative studio work set them apart from other early bands. They scored their first hit with "That'll Be the Day" (1957), which as followed by "Peggy Sue" and "Oh Boy" (1957) and "Maybe Baby" and "Rave On" (1958). Holly left the Crickets in 1958, but his promising solo career ended when he died in a plane crash while on tour. Killed with him were two other popular young rockers, Richie Valens and J. P. Richardson (the Big Bopper). Holly, who influenced many in later generations of rock artists, was among the first group of musicians inducted (1986) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Bibliography
See biographies by J. Goldrosen and J. Beecher (1987, repr. 2001), E. Amburn (1995), and P. Norman (1996); L. Lehmer, The Day the Music Died (1997, repr. 2004).
Representative Albums: "The Definitive Collection," "Greatest Hits," "The Complete Buddy Holly"
Representative Songs: "Peggy Sue," "That'll Be the Day," "Everyday"
Biography
Buddy Holly is perhaps the most anomalous legend of '50s rock & roll -- he had his share of hits, and he achieved major rock & roll stardom, but his importance transcends any sales figures or even the particulars of any one song (or group of songs) that he wrote or recorded. Holly was unique, his legendary status and his impact on popular music all the more extraordinary for having been achieved in barely 18 months. Among his rivals, Bill Haley was there first and established rock & roll music; Elvis Presley objectified the sexuality implicit in the music, selling hundreds of millions of records in the process, and defined one aspect of the youth and charisma needed for stardom; and Chuck Berry defined the music's roots in blues along with some of the finer points of its sexuality, and its youthful orientation (and, in the process, intermixed all of these elements). Holly's influence was just as far-reaching as these others, if far more subtle and more distinctly musical in nature. In a career lasting from the spring of 1957 until the winter of 1958-1959 -- less time than Elvis had at the top before the army took him (and less time, in fact, than Elvis spent in the army) -- Holly became the single most influential creative force in early rock & roll.
Born in Lubbock, TX, on September 7, 1936, Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holley (he later dropped the "e") was the youngest of four children. A natural musician from a musical family, he was proficient on guitar, banjo, and mandolin by age 15 and was working as part of a duo with his boyhood friend Bob Montgomery, with whom he had also started writing songs. By the mid-'50s, Buddy & Bob, as they billed themselves, were playing what they called "western and bop"; Holly, in particular, was listening to a lot of blues and R&B and finding it compatible with country music. He was among those young Southern men who heard and saw Elvis perform in the days when the latter was signed to Sam Phillips' Sun Records -- indeed, Buddy & Bob played as an opening act for Elvis when he played the area around Lubbock in early 1955, and Holly saw the future direction of his life and career.
By mid-1955, Buddy & Bob, who already worked with an upright bass (played by Larry Welborn), had added drummer Jerry Allison to their lineup. They'd also cut some sides that would have qualified as rock & roll, though no label was interested at that particular time. Eventually Montgomery, who leaned toward more of a traditional country sound, left the performing partnership, though they continued to compose songs together. Holly kept pushing his music toward a straight-ahead rock & roll sound, working with Allison, Welborn, and assorted other local musicians, including guitarist Sonny Curtis and bassist Don Guess. It was with the latter two that Holly cut his first official recording session in January of 1956 in Nashville for Decca Records. They found out, however, that there was a lot more to playing and cutting rock & roll than met the eye; the results of this and a follow-up session in July were alternately either a little too tame and a little too far to the country side of the mix or were too raw. Some good music and a pair of near classics, "Midnight Shift" and "Rock Around With Ollie Vee," did come out of those Decca sessions, but nothing issued at the time went anywhere. At the time, it looked as though Holly had missed his shot at stardom.
Fate intervened in the guise of Norman Petty, a musician-turned-producer based in Clovis, NM, who had an ear for the new music and what made it sound good, especially over the radio, to the kids. Petty had a studio where he charged by the song instead of by the hour, and Holly and company had already begun working there in the late spring of 1956. After Decca's rejection, Holly and his band, which now included Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar, threw themselves into what Petty regarded as the most promising songs they had, until they worked out a tight, tough version of one of the failed originals that Holly had cut in Nashville, entitled "That'll Be the Day." The title and lyrical phrase, lifted from a line that John Wayne was always quoting in the John Ford movie The Searchers, had staying power, and the group built on it. They got the song nailed and recorded, and with Petty's help, got it picked up by Murray Deutsch, a publishing associate of Petty's who, in turn, got it to Bob Thiele, an executive at Coral Records, who liked it. Ironically, Coral was a subsidiary of Decca, the same company to which Holly had previously been signed.
Thiele saw the record as potential hit, but there were some major hurdles to overcome before it could actually get released. For starters, according to author Philip Norman in his book Rave On, Thiele would get only the most begrudging support from his record company. Decca had lucked out in 1954 when, at Milt Gabler's urging, they'd signed Bill Haley & His Comets and subsequently saw his "Rock Around the Clock" top the charts, but very few of those in charge at Decca had a real feel or appreciation for rock & roll or any sense of where it might be heading, or whether the label could (or should) follow it there. For another, although he had been dropped by Decca Records the previous year, the contract that Holly had signed prohibited him from re-recording anything that he had cut for Decca, regardless of whether it had been released or not, for five years; though Coral Records was a subsidiary of Decca, there was every chance that Decca's Nashville office could hold up the release and might even haul Holly into court. Amid all of these possibilities, good and bad, Welborn, who had played on "That'll Be the Day," was replaced on bass by Joe B. Mauldin.
"That'll Be the Day" was issued in May of 1957 mostly as an indulgence to Thiele, to "humor" him, according to Norman. The record was put out on the Brunswick label, which was oriented more toward jazz and R&B, and credited to the Crickets, a group name picked as a dodge to prevent any of the powers-that-were at Decca -- and especially Decca's Nashville office -- from having too easy a time figuring out that the singer was the same artist that they'd dropped the year before. Petty also became the group's manager as well as their producer, signing the Crickets -- identified as Allison, Sullivan, and Mauldin -- to a contract. Holly wasn't listed as a member in the original document, in order to hide his involvement with "That'll Be the Day," but this omission would later become the source of serious legal and financial problems for him.
When the smoke cleared, the song shot to the top spot on the national charts that summer. Of course, Decca knew Holly's identity by then; with Thiele's persuasion and the reality of a serious hit in their midst, the company agreed to release Holly from the five-year restriction on his old contract, leaving him free to sign any recording contract he wanted. In the midst of sorting out the particulars of Holly's legal situation, Thiele discovered that he had someone on his hands who was potentially a good deal more than a one-hit wonder -- there were potentially more and different kinds of potential hits to come from him. When all was said and done, Holly found himself with two recording contracts, one with Brunswick as a member of the Crickets and the other with Coral Records as Buddy Holly, which was part of Thiele's strategy to get the most out of Holly's talent. By releasing two separate bodies of work, he could keep the group intact while giving room for its obvious leader and "star" to break out on his own.
There was actually little difference in the two sets of recordings for most of his career, in terms of how they were done or who played on them, except possibly that the harder, straight-ahead rock & roll songs, and the ones with backing vocals, tended to be credited to the Crickets. The confusion surrounding the Buddy Holly/Crickets dual identity was nothing, however, compared to the morass that constituted the songwriting credits on their work.
It's now clear that Petty, acting as their manager and producer, parceled out writing credits at random, gifting Niki Sullivan and Joe B. Mauldin (and himself) the co-authorship of "I'm Gonna Love You Too," while initially leaving Holly's name off of "Peggy Sue." Petty usually added his name to the credit line as well, a common practice in the 1950s for managers and producers who wanted a bigger piece of the action. In fairness, it should be said that Petty did make suggestions, some of them key, in shaping certain of Holly's songs, but he almost certainly didn't contribute to the extent that the shared credits would lead one to believe. Some of the public's confusion over songwriting was heightened by complications ensuing from another of the contracts that Holly had signed in 1956. Petty had his own publishing company, Nor Va Jak Music, and had a contract with Holly to publish all of his new songs; but the prior year, Holly had signed an exclusive contract with another company -- eventually a settlement and release from the old contract might be sorted out, but in order to reduce his profile as a songwriter until that happened, and to convince the other publisher that they weren't losing too much in any settlement, he copyrighted many of his new songs under the pseudonym "Charles Hardin."
The dual recording contracts made it possible for Holly to record an extraordinary number of sides in the course of his 18 months of fame. Meanwhile, the group -- billed as Buddy Holly & the Crickets -- became one of the top attractions of rock & roll's classic years, putting on shows that were as exciting and well played as any in the business. Holly was the frontman, singing lead and playing lead guitar -- itself an unusual combination -- as well as writing or co-writing many of their songs. But the Crickets were also a totally enveloping performing unit, generating a big and exciting sound (which, apart from some live recordings from their 1958 British tour, is lost to history). Allison was a very inventive drummer and contributed to the songwriting bit more often than his colleagues, and Joe B. Mauldin and Niki Sullivan provided a solid rhythm section.
The fact that the group relied on originals for their singles made them unique and put them years ahead of their time. In 1957-1958, songwriting wasn't considered a skill essential to a career in rock & roll; the music business was still patterned along the lines that it had followed since the '20s, with songwriting a specialized profession organized on the publishing side of the industry, separate from performing and recording. Once in a while, a performer might write a song or, much more rarely, as in the case of a Duke Ellington, count composition among his key talents, but generally this was an activity left to the experts. Any rock & roller with the inclination to write songs would also have to get past the image of Elvis, who stood to become a millionaire at age 22 and never wrote songs (the few "Presley" songwriting credits were the result of business arrangements rather than any creative activity on his part).
Buddy Holly & the Crickets changed that in a serious way by hitting number one with a song that they'd written and then reaching the Top Ten with originals like "Oh, Boy" and "Peggy Sue," and regularly charging up the charts on behalf of their own songwriting. This attribute wasn't appreciated by the public at the time, and wouldn't be noticed widely until the 1970s, but thousands of aspiring musicians, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney, took note of the fact, and some of them decided to try and emulate Holly.
Less obvious at the time, Holly and company also broke up the established record industry method of recording, which was to bring the artist into the label's own studio, working on a timetable dictated by corporate policy and union rules. If an artist were extremely successful -- à la Sinatra or Elvis, or later on, the Beatles -- they got a blank check in the studio and any union rules were smoothed over, but that was a rare privilege, available only to the most elite of musicians. Buddy Holly & the Crickets, by contrast, did their work, beginning with "That'll Be the Day," in Clovis, NM, at Petty's studio. They took their time, they experimented until they got the sound they wanted, and no union told them when to stop or start their work, and they delivered great records; what's more, they were records that didn't sound like anyone else's, anywhere.
The results were particularly telling on the history of rock music. The group worked out a sound that gave shape to the next wave of rock & roll and, especially, to early British rock & roll and the subsequent British Invasion beat, with the lead and rhythm guitars closely interlocked to create a fuller, harder sound. On songs such as "Not Fade Away,""Everyday," "Listen to Me," "Oh Boy!," "Peggy Sue," "Maybe Baby,""Rave On," "Heartbeat," and "It's So Easy," Holly advanced rock & roll's range and sophistication without abandoning its fundamental joy and excitement. Holly and the band weren't afraid to experiment even on their singles, so that "Peggy Sue" made use of the kind of changes in volume and timbre on the guitar that were usually reserved for instrumental records; similarly, "Words of Love" was one of the earliest successful examples of double-tracked vocals in rock & roll, which the Beatles, in particular, would embrace in the ensuing decade.
Buddy Holly & the Crickets were very popular in America, but in England they were even bigger, their impact serious rivaling that of Elvis and, in some ways, even exceeding it. This was due, in part, to the fact that they actually toured England -- they spent a month there in 1958, playing a series of shows that were still being written about 30 years later -- which was something that Elvis never did. But it also had to do with their sound and Holly's stage persona. The group's heavy use of rhythm guitar slotted right in with the sound of skiffle music, a mix of blues, folk, country, and jazz elements that constituted most of British youth's introduction to playing music and their way into rock & roll. Additionally, although he cut an exciting figure on-stage, Holly looked a lot less likely a rock & roll star than Elvis -- tall, lanky, and bespectacled, he looked like an ordinary guy who simply played and sang well, and part of his appeal as a rock & roll star was rooted in how unlikely he looked in that role. He provided inspiration -- and a way into the music -- for tens of thousands of British teenagers who also couldn't imagine themselves rivals to Elvis or Gene Vincent in the dark and dangerous department.
At least one star British guitarist of the late '50s, Hank Marvin of the Shadows, owed his look (and the fact that he wore his glasses proudly on stage) to Holly, and his look can be seen being propagated into the 1970s by Elvis Costello. Additionally, although he played several different kinds of guitar, Holly was specifically responsible for popularizing -- some would say elevating to mystical, even magical status -- the Fender Stratocaster, especially in England. For a lot of would-be rock & rollers on the Sceptered Isle, Holly's 1958 tour was the first chance they'd had to see or hear the instrument in action, and it quickly became the guitar of choice for anyone aspiring to stardom as an axeman in England. (Indeed, Marvin, inspired by Holly, later had what is reputed to be the first Stratocaster ever brought into England.)
The Crickets were reduced to a trio with the departure of Sullivan in late 1957, following the group's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, but that was almost the least of the changes that would ensue over the following year. The group consolidated its success with the release of two LPs, The Chirping Crickets and Buddy Holly, and did two very successful international tours as well as more performing in the United States. Holly had already developed aspirations and interests that diverged somewhat from those of Allison and Mauldin. The thought apparently had never occurred to either of them of giving up Texas as their home, and they continued to base their lives there, while Holly was increasingly drawn to New York, not just as a place to do business, but also to live. His romance with and marriage to Maria Elena Santiago, a receptionist in Murray Deutsch's office, only made the decision to move to New York easier.
By this time, Holly's music had grown in sophistication and complexity to the point where he had relinquished the lead guitar duties in the studio to session player Tommy Alsup, and he had done a number of recordings in New York utilizing session musicians such as King Curtis. It was during this period that his and the group's sales had slackened somewhat. The singles such as "Heartbeat" didn't sell nearly as well as the 45s of 1957 had rolled out of stores. He might even have advanced farther than a big chunk of the group's audience was prepared to accept in late 1958. "Well...All Right," for example, was years ahead of its time as a song and a recording.
Holly's split with the group -- and Petty -- in the fall of 1958 left him free to pursue some of those newer sounds, but it also left him short of cash resources. In the course of ending the association, it became clear to Holly and everyone else that Petty had manipulated the numbers and likely taken an enormous slice of the group's income for himself, though there was to prove almost no way of establishing this because he never seemed to finish his "accounting" of the moneys due to anyone, and his books were ultimately found to be in such disarray that when he came up with various low five-figure settlements to those involved, they were glad to get what they got.
With a new wife -- who was pregnant -- and no settlement coming in from Petty, Holly decided to earn some quick money by signing to play the Winter Dance Party package tour of the Midwest. It was on that tour that Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash, on February 3, 1959.
The crash was considered a piece of grim but not terribly significant news at the time. Most news organizations, run by men who'd come of age in the 1930s or 1940s, didn't take rock & roll very seriously, except to the degree that it could be exploited to sell newspapers or build viewing audiences. Holly's clean-cut image and scandal-free life, coupled with the news of his recent marriage, did give the story more poignancy than it otherwise might have had and probably got him treated more respectfully than would have been the case with other music stars of the period.
For teenagers of the period, it was the first public tragedy of its kind. No white rock & roller of any significance had ever died before, forget three of them, and the news was devastating. Radio station disc jockeys were also shaken -- for a lot of people involved in rock & roll music on any level, Holly's death may well have been the first time that they woke up the next day wishing and hoping that the previous day's news had all been a dream.
The suddenness and the whole accidental nature of the event, coupled with the ages of Holly and Valens -- 22 and 17, respectively -- made it even harder to take. Hank Williams had died at 29, but with his drinking and drug use he had always seemed on the fast track to the grave to almost anyone who knew him and even to a lot of fans; Johnny Ace had died in 1954 backstage at a show, but that was also by his own hand, in a game of Russian roulette. The emotional resonances of this event was totally different in every way possible from those tragedies.
A few careers were actually launched in the wake of the tragedy. Bobby Vee leaped to stardom when he and his band took over Holly's spot on the tour. In America, however, something of a pall fell over rock & roll music -- its sound was muted by Holly's death and Elvis' military service, and this darkness didn't fully lift for years. In England, the reaction was much more concentrated and pronounced -- Holly's final single, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," rose to number one on the British charts in the wake of his death, and it seemed as though the new generation of English rock & rollers and their audiences wouldn't let Holly's music or spirit die. Two years after the event, producer Joe Meek and singer Mike Berry combined to make "Tribute to Buddy Holly," a memorial single that sounded like the man himself reborn and still brings smiles and chills to listeners who know it; it is said that Meek never entirely got over Holly's death, and he did kill himself on the anniversary. On the less extreme front, players from Lennon, McCartney, and Keith Richards on down all found themselves influenced by Holly's music, songs, and playing. Groups like the Searchers -- taking their name from the same Wayne movie whence the phrase "that'll be the day" had been lifted -- sounded a lot like the Crickets and had a handful of his songs in their repertory when they cut their earliest sides, and it wasn't just the hits that they knew, but album cuts as well. Other bands, like a Manchester-spawned outfit fronted by Allan Clarke, Graham Nash, and Tony Hicks began a four-decade career by taking the name the Hollies.
Holly's record label continued to release posthumous albums of his work for years after his death, beginning with The Buddy Holly Story in early 1959, and they even repackaged the 1956 Decca sides several times over under various titles (the mid-'70s British LP The Nashville Sessions is the best of the vinyl editions). The company also engaged Petty to take various Holly demos and early country-flavored sides done by Buddy & Bob and dub new instruments and backing voices, principally using a band called the Fireballs. Those releases, including the albums Reminiscing and Showcase, did moderately well in America, but in England they actually charted. New recordings of his music, including the Rolling Stones' bone-shaking rendition of "Not Fade Away" -- taking it back to its Bo Diddley-inspired roots -- and the Beatles gorgeous rendition of "Words of Love" helped keep Holly's name alive before a new generation of listeners. In America, it was more of an uphill struggle to spread the word -- rock & roll, like most American popular culture, was always regarded as more easily disposable, and as a new generation of teenagers and new musical phenomena came along, the public did gradually forget. By the end of the 1960s, except among older fans (now in their twenties) and hardcore oldies listeners, Holly was a largely forgotten figure in his own country.
The tide began to turn at the very tail-end of the 1960s, with the beginning of the oldies boom. Holly's music figured in it, of course, and as people listened they also heard about the man behind it -- even Rolling Stone magazine, then the arbiter of taste for the counterculture, went out of its way to remind people of who Holly was. His image constituted a haunting figure, frozen forever in poses from 1957 and 1958, bespectacled, wearing a jacket and smiling; he looked like (and was) a figure from another age. The nature of his death, in an air crash, also set him apart from some of the then-recent deaths of contemporary rock stars such as Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison -- they'd all pushed life right to the edge, till it broke, where Holly stood there seemingly eternally innocent, both personally and in terms of the times in which he'd lived.
Then, in 1971, a little-known singer/songwriter named Don McLean, who counted himself a Holly fan, rose to international stardom behind a song called "American Pie," whose narrative structure was hooked around "the day the music died." After disposing of the erroneous notion that he was referring to President Kennedy, McLean made it clear that he meant February 3, 1959, and Holly. Coverage of "American Pie"'s popularity and lyrics as it soared to the top of the charts inevitably led to mentions of Holly, who was suddenly getting more exposure in the national press than he'd ever enjoyed in his lifetime.
His music had never disappeared -- even the Grateful Dead performed "Not Fade Away" in concert -- and now there was a song that seemed to give millions of people a series of personal and musical reference points into which to place the man. Until "American Pie," most Americans equated November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy's murder, with the loss of national innocence and an opening of an era of shared grief. McLean pushed the reference point back to February 3, 1959, on a purely personal basis, and an astonishingly large number of listeners accepted it.
In 1975, McCartney's MPL Communications bought Holly's publishing catalog from a near-bankrupt Petty. To some, the sale was Petty's final act of theft -- having robbed Holly and his widow blind in settling the account of what was owed him as a performer, he was profiting one last time from his perfidy. The truth is that it was a godsend to Maria Elena Holly and the Holly family in Lubbock; amid the events of the years and decades that followed, MPL was able to sell and exploit those songs in ways that Petty in Clovis, NM, never could have, and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for them that Petty never would have. And with McCartney -- a Holly fan from the age of 15, and probably the most successful fan Holly ever had -- as publisher, they were paid every cent they had coming.
Amid the growing interest in Holly's music, the record industry was very slow to respond, at least in America. At the end of the 1960s, there were exactly two Holly LPs available domestically, The Great Buddy Holly, consisting of the 1956 Decca sides, which hardly represented his best or most important work, and the even more dispensable Giant album, consisting of overdubbed demos and outtakes. British audiences got access to more and better parts of his catalog first, and a collection, 20 Golden Greats, actually topped the charts over there in 1978, in conjunction with the release of the movie The Buddy Holly Story, starring Gary Busey in the title role. It was a romanticized and very simplified account of the man's life and career, and slighted the contributions of the other members of the Crickets -- and never even mentioned Petty -- but it got some of the essentials right and made Busey into a star and Holly into a household name.
In 1979, Holly became the first rock & roll star to be the subject of a career-spanning box set, ambitiously (and inaccurately) called The Complete Buddy Holly. Initially released in England and Germany, it later appeared in America, but it only seemed to whet hardcore fans' appetites for more -- two or three Holly bootlegs were circulating in the early '80s, including one that offered a handful of songs from the group's 1958 British tour. In a rare bold move, mostly courtesy of producer Steve Hoffman, MCA Records in 1983 issued For the First Time Anywhere, a selection of raw, undubbed masters of original Holly recordings that had previously only been available with extra instruments added on -- it was followed by From the Original Master Tapes, the first attempt to put together a Holly compilation with upgraded sound quality. Those titles and The Great Buddy Holly were the earliest of Holly's official CD releases, though they were soon followed by Buddy Holly and The Chirping Crickets. In 1986, the BBC aired The Real Buddy Holly Story, a documentary produced by McCartney as a counteractive to the Busey movie, which covered all of the areas ignored by the inaccuracies of the movie and responded to them. There have followed stage musicals and plays, upgraded and audiophile reissues of his work, and tribute albums, all continuing to flow out at a steady pace more than 50 years after Holly's death. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll."[1] His works and innovations inspired and influenced both his contemporaries and later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, and exerted a profound influence on popular music.[2]
Charles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock, Texas to Lawrence Odell Holley and Ella Pauline Drake Holley on Labor Day, 1936. The Holleys were a musical family, and as a young boy Holley learned to play piano, guitar, and fiddle. "[H]is singing won a talent contest at age five."[5] He was always known as Buddy to his family. In 1949, Buddy made a recording of Hank Snow's "My Two Timin' Woman" on a wire recorder "borrowed" by a friend who worked in a music shop[citation needed], his first known recording.[6]
During the fall of that year, he met Bob Montgomery at Hutchinson Junior High School. They shared a common interest in music and soon teamed up as "Buddy and Bob". Initially influenced by bluegrass music, they sang harmony duets at local clubs and high school talent shows. In Lubbock, Holly attended Hutchinson Junior High School, which has a mural honoring him, and Lubbock High School, which has numerous features to honor the late musician. His musical interests grew throughout high school while singing in the Lubbock High School Choir.[7]
Music career
Seeing Elvis Presley sing live in Lubbock in early 1955 was a turning point for Holly. He began to incorporate a more rockabilly style of sound into his music[5], which further evolved into rock music. On October 15, he opened on the same bill with Presley,[6] also in Lubbock, catching the eye of a Nashville talent scout.[8] Holly's transition to rock continued when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets at a local rock show organized by Eddie Crandall, who was also the manager for Marty Robbins.[6]
As a result of this performance, on February 8, 1956, Decca Records signed him to a contract, on which his last name was misspelled as "Holly".[6] That spelling was then adopted for his professional career. Holly formed his own band, though at that time it had no name. It would later be called the Crickets.
That year, he went to Nashville for three recording sessions with producer Owen Bradley.[9] However, he chafed under a restrictive atmosphere that allowed him little input.[9] Among the tracks he recorded was an early version of "That'll Be The Day", which took its title from a phrase that John Wayne's character says repeatedly in the 1956 film, The Searchers.[10] (This initial version of the song played more slowly and about half an octave higher than the later hit version.) However, Decca chose to release two other singles, "Blue Days, Black Nights" and "Modern Don Juan", which failed to make an impression. On January 22, 1957, Decca informed Holly that his contract would not be renewed,[6] but insisted he not record the same songs for anyone else for five years.[11]
Norman Petty Recording Studios in Clovis, New Mexico
Holly got Norman Petty to manage the group, and the band began recording at Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Petty started contacting music publishers and labels. Brunswick Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed the Crickets on March 19.[12] Soon after, Holly signed on as a solo artist with another Decca subsidiary, Coral Records. This put him in the unusual position of having two record contracts at the same time.
On May 27, "That'll Be The Day" was released as a single, credited to the Crickets to try to bypass Decca's legal rights. When it became a hit, Decca decided to overlook this. The song topped the US "Best Sellers in Stores" chart on September 23 and the UK Singles Chart for three weeks, beginning November 1. The Crickets performed it and another hit, "Peggy Sue", on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1.[6]
Holly managed to bridge some of the racial divide that marked rock n' roll. While Elvis made black music more acceptable to whites, Holly won over an all-black audience when the Crickets were booked at New York's Apollo Theater for August 16-22, 1956,[6] though, unlike the immediate response depicted in the 1978 movie The Buddy Holly Story, it actually took several performances for the audience to appreciate his talents. In August 1957, the Crickets were the only white performers on a national tour, their first.[8]
As Holly was signed to Decca both as a solo artist and as part of the Crickets, two debut albums were released: The "Chirping" Crickets on November 27, 1957 and Buddy Holly on February 20, 1958.[13] Singles "Peggy Sue" and "Oh Boy!" cracked the top ten in both the U.S. and UK charts. Holly and the Crickets toured Australia in January and the UK in March.[14] The third and last album, That'll Be the Day, was put together from early recordings and released in April.
Marriage
In June 1958, he met Maria Elena Santiago (born 1935 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) while she was working as a receptionist for Murray Deutch, an executive at Peer-Southern Music, a New York music publisher.[15]
Holly managed to get Maria Elena along to lunch at Howard Johnson's thanks to Deutch's secretary, Jo Harper. By the end of lunch, he had asked her to have dinner with him that night at the hangout for Manhattan's elite, P. J. Clarke's. He proposed on their very first date. "While we were having dinner, he got up and came back with his hands behind his back. He brought out a red rose and said, "This is for you. Would you marry me?" He turned up to her guardian's house the very next morning to gain her approval. She initially thought he was kidding, but they were married in Lubbock on August 15, 1958, less than two months after they had met.[15] "I'd never had a boyfriend in my life. I'd never been on a date before. But when I saw Buddy, it was like magic. We had something special: love at first sight," Maria Elena told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on what would have been their fiftieth wedding anniversary.[16] The newlyweds honeymooned in Acapulco.[15]
Maria Elena traveled on tours, doing everything from the laundry to equipment setup to ensuring the group got paid. Although Holly had already begun to become disillusioned with Norman Petty before meeting his bride, it was through Maria Elena and her aunt Provi, who was the head of Latin American music at Peer Southern, that he began to fully realize what was going on with his manager, who was paying the band's royalties into his own company's account.[15]
Holly wrote the song "True Love Ways" about his relationship with his young wife. It was recorded in her presence on October 21, 1958 at Decca's Pythian Temple, with Dick Jacob, Coral-Brunswick's new head of Artists & Repertoire, serving as both producer and conductor of the eighteen-piece orchestra, which included members of the New York Symphony Orchestra, NBC Television's house orchestra and Abraham "Boomie" Richman, formerly of Benny Goodman's band.[15]
It was not until Holly died that many fans became aware of his marriage.[15]
Holly in New York
The ambitious Holly became increasingly interested in the New York music/recording/publishing scene, while his bandmates wanted to go back home to Lubbock. As a result, the group split up in late 1958. The Hollys settled in at Greenwich Village, New York, in the new Brevoort apartment block at 9th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was here that he recorded the series of acoustic songs, including "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and "What to Do", known as the "Apartment Tapes", which were released after his death.
The Hollys frequented many of New York's music venues, including The Village Gate, Blue Note, Village Vanguard, and Johnny Johnson's. Maria Elena reported that Buddy was keen to learn finger-style flamenco guitar and would often visit her aunt's home to play the piano there. He wanted to develop collaborations between soul singers and rock 'n' roll, hoping to make an album with Ray Charles and gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. He also had ambitions to work in film, like Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran, and registered for acting classes with Lee Strasburg's Actors' Studio, where the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean had trained.[15]
However, he was still having trouble getting his royalties from Petty, so he hired the noted lawyer Harold Orenstein at the recommendation of his friends, the Everly Brothers, who had engaged Orenstein following their own disputes with their manager Wesley Rose. Yet, with the money still being withheld by Petty and with rent due, Buddy was forced to go back on the road.[15]
Buddy was offered the Winter Dance Party by the GAC agency, a three-week tour across the Midwest opening on January 23, 1959, with other notable performers such as Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the pilot were killed en route to Moorhead, MN, when their small plane crashed soon after taking off from Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3, 1959. Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie".
Funeral
Holly's funeral was held on February 7, 1959, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock.[17] The service was performed by Ben D. Johnson, who had presided at the Hollys' wedding just months earlier. The pallbearers were Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Niki Sullivan, Bob Montgomery, Sonny Curtis and Phil Everly. Waylon Jennings was unable to attend due to his commitment to the still touring Winter Dance Party. The body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city. Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his surname (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.
Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after. María Elena Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. She later told the Avalanche-Journal, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."[16]
Style
Holly's music was sophisticated for its day, including the use of instruments considered novel for rock and roll, such as the celesta (heard on "Everyday"). Holly was an influential lead and rhythm guitarist, notably on songs such as "Peggy Sue" and "Not Fade Away". While Holly could pump out boy-loves-girl songs with the best of his contemporaries, other songs featured more sophisticated lyrics and more complex harmonies and melodies than had previously appeared in the genre.
Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a glottal stop, to emphasize certain words in any given song, especially the rockers. Other singers (such as Elvis) have used a similar technique, though less obviously and consistently. Examples of this can be found at the start of the raucous "Rave On!": "Weh-eh-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-ou..."; in "That'll Be the Day": "Well, you give me all your lovin' and your -turtle dovin'..."; and in "Peggy Sue": "I love you Peggy Sue - with a love so rare and tr-ue ...".
Influence
Buddy Holly statue on the Lubbock Walk of Fame
Holly set the template for the standard rock and roll band: two guitars, bass, and drums.[3] He was also one of the first in the genre to write, produce, and perform his own songs.
Contrary to popular belief, teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not attend a Holly concert, although they watched his TV appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium; Tony Bramwell, a school friend of McCartney and George Harrison, did. Bramwell met Holly, and freely shared his records with all three. Lennon and McCartney later cited Holly as a primary influence.[18] (Their band's name, The Beatles, was chosen partly in homage to Holly's Crickets.) The Beatles did a cover version of "Words of Love" that was a close reproduction of Holly's version, released on 1964's Beatles for Sale. During the January 1969 sessions for the Let It Be album, the Beatles played a slow impromptu version of "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" — although not written by Holly, it was popularized by him — with Lennon mimicking Holly's vocal style; the recording was eventually released in the mid-1990s on Anthology 3. Paul McCartney's band Wings recorded their version of "Love is Strange" on their first album Wild Life. In addition, John Lennon recorded a cover version of "Peggy Sue" on his 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll. McCartney owns the publishing rights to Holly's song catalogue.[19]
A 17-year-old Bob Dylan attended the January 31, 1959 show, two nights before Holly's death. Dylan referred to this in his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for his Time out of Mind being named Album of the Year:
And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went
to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him...and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.[20]
The Holly mural on 19th Street in Lubbock
Keith Richards attended one of Holly's performances, where he heard "Not Fade Away" for the first time. The Rolling Stones had an early hit covering the song.
In an August 24, 1978 Rolling Stone interview, Bruce Springsteen told Dave Marsh, "I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on; that keeps me honest."
Various rock and roll histories have asserted that the singing group The Hollies were named in homage to Buddy Holly. According to the band's website, although the group admired Holly (and years later produced an album covering some of his songs), their name was inspired primarily by the sprigs of holly in evidence around Christmas of 1962.[21]
The Crickets
Holly's backing band, The Crickets, consisted of Niki Sullivan (guitar), Joe B. Mauldin (bass) and Jerry Allison (drums). The Crickets did not provide backing vocals on recordings, instead they were provided by The Roses and The Picks. At the time they were not credited, and this led to a move on the part of The Picks in later years to bolster and even exploit their connection to the Holly name.
During 1958, Sullivan left the group and The Crickets soldiered on as a trio. By the end of that year, Holly had dismissed the band upon moving to New York, but left them with the rights to the band's name. By December 1958, Holly had been booked on the Winter Dance Party tour and assembled a backing band consisting of Tommy Allsup (guitar), Waylon Jennings (bass) and Carl Bunch (drums). They were billed as The Crickets on this ill-fated tour.
The original Crickets carried on, bringing in old friend Sonny Curtis to play guitar and Earl Sinks to sing lead. The first single "Love's Made a Fool Of You" was a Holly cover sung by Sinks who left soon after to pursue a solo career. After Curtis was drafted, David Box came on as lead singer and guitarist. His only release with the group was a cover of "Peggy Sue Got Married", backed with an original composition, "Don't Cha Know". Ironically, Box was killed in 1964 in a plane crash, at 21 years of age. Allison, Curtis and Mauldin kept the band going with occasional fluctuations in membership, signing to Liberty records in 1961 and remaining there for the next few years. They were unable to match their earlier successes with Holly, charting only two singles, "He's Old Enough To Know Better" (#105, 1962) and "My Little Girl" (#134, 1963).
Buddy Holly released only three albums in his lifetime. Nonetheless, he recorded so prolifically that Coral Records was able to release brand-new albums and singles for 10 years after his death, although the technical quality was very mixed, some being studio quality and others home recordings. Holly's simple demonstration recordings were overdubbed by studio musicians to bring them up to then-commercial standards. The best of these overdubbed records is often considered to be the first posthumous single, the 1959 coupling of "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", produced by Jack Hansen, with added backing vocals by the Ray Charles Singers in simulation of an authentic Crickets record.[citation needed] "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" was actually supposed to be the "A" side of the 45, with the backup group effectively echoing Buddy's call-and-response vocal. The Hansen session, in which Holly's last six original compositions were overdubbed, was issued on the 1960 Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2. But the best "posthumous" records were the studio recordings, which included "Wishing" and "Reminiscing".
Buddy Holly continued to be promoted and sold as an "active" artist, and his records had a loyal following, especially in Europe. The demand for unissued Holly material was so great that Norman Petty resorted to overdubbing whatever he could find: alternate takes of studio recordings, originally rejected masters, "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and the other five 1959 tracks (adding new surf-guitar arrangements), and even Holly's amateur demos from 1954 (where the low-fidelity vocals are often muffled behind the new orchestrations). The last new Buddy Holly album was Giant (featuring the single "Love Is Strange"), issued in 1969. Between the 1959–60 Jack Hansen overdubs, the 1960s Norman Petty overdubs, various alternate takes, and Holly's undubbed originals, collectors can often choose from multiple versions of the same song.
The Picks' Overdubs
In February 1984, MCA mastering engineer Steve Hoffman sent what are known as safety copies of several Buddy Holly master recordings to John Pickering of The Picks[22] who took them to Sound Masters studios in Houston, TX. There, the reunited group overdubbed their new vocal parts onto at least 60 recordings, and sent them back to Hoffman at MCA. The general consensus seems to be that, with Hoffman's influence, MCA would've issued these "new" recordings as an album[22], perhaps to commemorate the 25th year since Holly's passing. This however, was not to be.
Not long afterwards, Steve Hoffman was fired by MCA, for, among other things, stealing master tapes of Holly material and attempting to sell them to, among other parties, the Norman Petty estate. A short time later, a raid produced the stolen tapes which were then returned to MCA. With these plans having fallen through, Pickering decided to take matters into his own hands and go the self-release route.
These recordings slowly made their way to the public on privately pressed albums like "The Original Chirping Sound" and "Buddy Holly Not Fade Away". In 1992, John Pickering approached Viceroy Records to arrange a deal for major nationwide distribution of these overdubbed recordings, who hit a brick wall when MCA made it clear that Pickering did not have proper legal clearance to release such recordings[22]. Andy McKaie, an executive at MCA, has stated that Pickering has never bothered to ask for licensing on the songs. To this day, budget labels release these recordings despite the fact that they are, depending on how one looks at it, bootlegs or pirates.
In popular culture
The Buddy Holly Center, a small museum located in Lubbock
In 1987, Marshall Crenshaw portrayed Buddy Holly in the movie La Bamba. He is featured performing at the Surf Ballroom and boarding the doomed airplane with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Crenshaw's version of "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" is featured on the La Bamba original motion picture soundtrack. Steve Buscemi played a Buddy Holly imitator/waiter in Pulp Fiction (1994). Currently in preproduction (scheduled for 2010) is a film version of Bradley Denton's 1991 sci-fi novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, starring Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite fame—not as Buddy (that role is still open) but as the protagonist Oliver Vale.
There were also successful Broadway and West End musicals documenting his career. Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story ran in the West End for 13 years. This was followed by a tour and return to the West End on 3 August 2007.
Alvin Stardust wrote a song called "I Feel Like Buddy Holly".
Swedish band Gyllene Tider (pre-Roxette) recorded the song "Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly" ("If We'll Make Love We'll Make Love to Buddy Holly") in 1979.
Buddy is featured on the 7" label.
Nirvana's music video for the song In Bloom pays tribute to Buddy with frontman Kurt Cobain parodying his style and expression.
In the Red Hot Chili Peppers' music video for Dani California, in which the band take on several sub genres of Rock, Buddy is one of the first to be represented.
International airport... as I'm getting out I laugh to myself 'cause this is the only place, where as you're getting on the plane you see Buddy Holly's face. I hear they hate me now just like they hated you, maybe when I'm dead and gone I'm gonna get a statue too.
Novels
Buddy has appeared as a fictional character in several novels. Bradley Denton's Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1992.[23]. He was referred to as a character in P.F. Kluge's Eddie and the Cruisers (1980) and showed up in an alternate time stream in 'The Second Coming of Buddy Holley' chapter in Edward Bryant's 1988 Wild Cards Volume V: Down and Dirty--an original Bantam Books paperback. The plane crash appeared in The Day the Music Died (Carroll & Graf, 1999), the first of Ed Gorman's rock 'n' roll mystery novels. In Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, the pioneer of what is easily recognized as rock and roll is a musician from Llamedos named Imp y Celyn, or Buddy Holly.
Monuments
Fan monument in a private cornfield at the site of the airplane crash, near Clear Lake, Iowa
Downtown Lubbock has a "walk of fame" with plaques to various area artists such as Glenna Goodacre, Mac Davis, Maines Brothers Band, and Waylon Jennings, with a life-size statue of Buddy by sculptor Grant Speed (1980) playing his Fender guitar as its centerpiece. Downtown Lubbock also features Buddy Holly Avenue and the Buddy Holly Center, which is a museum dedicated to Texas art and music.
In 1988, Ken Paquette, a Wisconsin fan of the 1950s, erected a stainless steel monument at the site of the airplane crash, depicting a steel guitar and a set of three records bearing the names of each of the three performers. It is located on private farmland approximately five miles north of Clear Lake. He also created a similar stainless steel monument to the three musicians at the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay. That memorial was unveiled on July 17, 2003.[24]
Buddy Holly's previous home in Lubbock is still standing. It is a private residence and not open for tours.
Amburn, Ellis (1996). Buddy Holly: A Biography. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0312145576.
Bustard, Anne (2005). Buddy: The Story of Buddy Holly. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1422393024.
Dawson, Jim; Leigh, Spencer (1996). Memories of Buddy Holly. Big Nickel Publications. ISBN 978-0936433202.
Goldrosen, John; Beecher, John (1996). Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80715-7.
Goldrosen, John (1975). Buddy Holly: His Life and Music. Popular Press. ISBN 0859470180
Gribbin, John (2009). Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly. London: Icon Books. ISBN 978-1848310346
Dave Laing, Professor. Buddy Holly (Icons of Pop Music). Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-22168-4.
Lehmer, Larry (1997). The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. Schirmer Trade Books. ISBN 0028647416 or 978-0028647418.
Mann, Alan (1996). The A-Z of Buddy Holly. Aurum Press (2nd edition). ISBN 1854104330 or 978-1854104335.
McFadden, Hugh (2005). Elegy for Charles Hardin Holley, in Elegies & Epiphanies. Belfast: Lagan Press.
Norman, Philip (1996). Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684800829 or 978-0684800820.
Peer, Elizabeth and Ralph II (1972). Buddy Holly: A Biography in Words, Photographs and Music Australia: Peer International. ASIN B000W24DZO.
Peters, Richard (1990). The Legend That Is Buddy Holly. Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 0285630059 or 978-0285630055.
Rabin, Stanton (2009). OH BOY! The Life and Music of Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer Buddy Holly. Van Winkle Publishing (Kindle). ASIN B0010QBLLG.
Tobler, John (1979). The Buddy Holly Story. Beaufort Books.
If anyone asks you what kind of music you play, tell him 'pop.' Don't tell him 'rock'n'roll' or they won't even let you in the hotel.
