 
Buddy Holly was born Charles Holley on Sept. 7, 1936 in Lubbock, Texas. He was was raised by a family of musicians, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his brothers and sisters. Holly's musical style was influenced by gospel, country, and rhythm and blues music; he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school.In 1955 he bought a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and developed a style of playing featuring major chords that became his trademark. A year later, Holly would release his first album with his band The Crickets. As a singer and songwriter, in the two short years before his death in early 1959 he would become a pioneering figure of mid-1950s popular music. Buddy Holly released only three original albums. However, the music on those three records were milestones in the development of rock and roll. Countless musicians, from Bruce Springsteen to The Rolling Stones, have covered Buddy Holly's songs on recorded and in live performances. His music has lived on for over 60 years. In 1955, after opening for Elvis Presley, Holly decided to pursue a full-time career in music. He opened for Elvis, who was about to sign his own first record contract, three times that year, and Holly's band's style shifted from country and western to entirely rock and roll. In October that year, when Holly opened for Bill Haley & His Comets, he was spotted by a scout who helped him get a record contract. 
'That'll Be the Day' was released as a single that was credited to The Crickets, which became the name of Buddy Holly's band. It was Holly's breakthrough; in September 1957 as the band toured, the song, which became a rock and roll classic, topped both the US and UK singles charts. Its success was followed in October by another major hit, 'Peggy Sue', which Holly played for the American audience the following year on the ubiquitous Buddy Holly's music had catchy melodies and harmonies, and an innovative use of studio techniques, which would be imitated by many artists to follow. Totally irrelevant side note: Ed Sullivan was an entertainment promoter who hosted a live show every Sunday evening, where viewers could see singers, dancers, magicians, acrobats, and strange people who practiced dinner plate spinning on sticks. Every Sunday evening when I was a kid, my family would sit down to tune in to our one TV channel, where we would watch 'The Wonderful World of Disney' followed by 'The Ed Sullivan Show', and then 'Bonanza'. The Ed Sullivan Show often introduced popular or new musical acts. In those days there was no MTV, YouTube or internet, and Ed Sullivan was the only place one could see performers we'd heard about or whose records we'd purchased. It was there we watched the Beatles, Elvis, Petula Clark and the Rolling Stones perform live, playing their latest hit songs. Teenagers lived for those performances! 
In early 1959, Buddy Holly assembled a new band, which included the future country music star Waylon Jennings (right). Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the 'Winter Dance Party' tour across the Midwest states in the U.S. New artists Ritchie Valens, 'The Big Bopper' J. P. Richardson, and the vocal group Dion and the Belmonts had joined the tour as well. All of the artists had to make their way, usually on tour buses, between venues. The long journeys between the towns and cities where they were playing, on board cold uncomfortable tour buses, were hard on the performers, who often suffered from colds, the flu, and even frostbite. After a performance in Clear Lake, and fed up with conditions on the tour bus, Holly chose to charter a plane with his band members Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup, to reach their next venue in Minnesota. J. P. Richardson, suffering from flu, took Jennings' seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Ritchie Valens on a coin toss. Soon after takeoff on February 3, 1959, late at night in poor, snowy weather, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, which crashed into a cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa. American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and 'The Big Bopper' J. P. Richardson were all killed, together with pilot Roger Peterson.  Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and 'The Big Bopper' J. P. Richardson Waylon Jennings, who went on to become a huge country and western performer, was haunted by his decision to give up his seat for years to come. The tragedy became known as 'The Day the Music Died', after a lyric from Don McLean's 1971 hit 'American Pie'. Singer Ritchie Valens was just starting to make it big, with his newly released song 'La Bamba', when his life was cut short at age 17. He was later immortalized in a 1987 movie. Richardson was sick the night he took Waylon Jennings' seat on the plane. Known by his stage name, "The "Big Bopper," he had a hit the previous year with 'Chantilly Lace'. Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts was the only one of the Winter Dance Party tour's four headliners not on the plane that night. His most well-known song was probably 'Runaround Sue'. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and is still performing. The crash has inspired generations of artists. Lou Diamond Phillips played Ritchie Valens in the 1987 hit movie 'La Bamba'. Gary Busey played Holly in the 1978 movie 'The Buddy Holly Story'. One of my favourite Buddy Holly songs is 'True Love Ways'. The song was first released as a single in Britain in May 1960, reaching number 25 on the UK Singles Chart. It was released the following month in the US, but did not make the charts. Here is Holly's version. In 1965, Peter and Gordon's version became a hit internationally, reaching number 2 in the UK, number 14 in the US Billboard Hot 100. Here is their version of 'True Love Ways', which I had in my record collection. |