Tommy Allsup with Adrian-L,
The Half Moon, Putney, London, June 2008

[/quote]


That's a great picture Adrian.

The Last Days Of Buddy Holly - Jonathan Cott - Rolling Stone Feb 2009



ROCKMAN

thanks for posting that RS article, Rockman, moving stuff.

Buddy Holly: the 50th anniversary of an unlikely legend


On the 50th anniversary of his death, we trace Buddy Holly's posthumous ascent from boy next door to rock and roll's first real artist.

By Neil McCormick

[www.telegraph.co.uk]



An ordinary boy: Buddy Holly backstage in 1958 Photo: DICK COLE


He was the first of the dead rock stars. Buddy Holly's swift rise and tragic end set a template for a certain kind of posthumous rock idolatry. I wasn't even born when Holly was killed in a plane crash 50 years ago tomorrow, yet here we are still talking about him 50 years later, speculating on why he was so important to pop culture, wondering what would have become of him had he lived.

Yet, in so many ways, Holly seems an unlikely candidate for posthumous deification. Rock's death cults usually form around self-destructive rebels: Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain (and, in rap, Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.), characters who correspond to that melodramatic part of the teenage psyche that is ready to destroy the world and damn the consequences. Fresh faced, geeky, bespectacled, smiling and sweet voiced, Holly certainly doesn't conform to the cliché of living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse.

Had it been Elvis Presley in that plane, the pop world would have been shaken to its core, but would it have been so surprised? Elvis had an other-worldly quality, his greaseball surliness so threatening to America's vision of itself that they drafted him into the army and cut off his quiff. Holly had the demeanour of the boy next door, which is, perhaps, what made his death so truly shocking.

"That'll be the day-hay-hay when I die," he sang, but it was throwaway teen bravura, effective precisely because he couldn't imagine such a circumstance. There was no brooding foreboding in his music, which breathed with lightness and life, rhythmic zing, melodic air. He was innocence crushed, potential stamped out. Holly is such a compelling figure of tragedy because he embodies the terrible truth that death comes to everyone.

Two other rock and rollers died in that plane crash, but it is Holly we remember because his music was pitched at the highest level, with a quality and originality that has resonated throughout pop culture. At a time when most pop stars were still musical vehicles for songwriters and producers, Holly was the first complete artist in the modern way.

He was a singer-songwriter and self-producer who did about as much with four chords (at least one more than most rock and rollers of the era used) as it was possible to do. His Fender Stratocaster guitar licks are prototypes for rock's obsession with riffing, which Holly weaves through seamlessly structured, melodically expansive songs. The rhythm tracks are sprightly and inventive: listen to Cricket drummer Jerry Allison's rolling tom tom's on Peggy Sue, or the cardboard-box beat of Not Fade Away.

The lyrics are witty and conversational (full of flip teen phrases such as "maybe, baby" and "Oh, boy!"), with the spoken vitality of real life and undercurrents of emotional depth: What To Do tackles heartbreak with gentle reflection rather than melodramatic angst. And Holly was a bold vocal stylist, who could split a syllable eight different ways at once. There is almost nothing to the lyric of Peggy Sue, yet his variations are like a comedic dare, constantly returning to the core phrase to invest it with another level of desire.

Holly came out of the country music tradition, which is reflected in the economy and wit of his writing. He played with the Crickets at high school but had his head turned after opening for Elvis Presley in 1955. It is reported that Holly changed the band's musical direction almost overnight. Yet he was almost the anti-Elvis. He cut records with guitar-twisting grooves that teenagers wanted to dance to, but there was simply nothing about Holly that evoked the revolutionary, sexually liberated spirit that made this youth movement so threatening to an older generation.

Indeed, Paul Anka (who toured on the same bill as Holly and wrote It Doesn't Matter Anymore for his friend) has claimed that Holly envied Anka's career as a mainstream pop idol and wanted to move his music in a more old-fashioned, romantic direction (as evinced on his posthumously released orchestral sessions, that gave us such Holly classics True Love Ways and the definitive cover of Raining In My Heart). Had he lived, I wonder would we even think of him now as a rock idol?

Yet Holly had a huge impact in his time, precisely because his apparent ordinariness made young musicians everywhere feel they could do what he was doing. "With Elvis, you thought, 'God, he's good looking.' With Buddy, it was like, 'God, he's the boy next door'," Paul McCartney recently acknowledged. "It was a particular bonus for John, who had horn-rimmed glasses but whipped them off whenever girls came near. Now he wore them proudly."

There was a real liberation in the unapologetic plainness of Holly's image. Frank Allen of the Searchers called it "the revenge of the nerd". But it was the undeniable quality of the music that made the revenge complete.

McCartney and Lennon were suitably enamoured to name their band after an insect in homage to the Crickets. The Beatles' mix of rock drive and pop melody, lashed together with harmonies, owes much to Holly's inspiration. The Rolling Stones chose a Buddy Holly track for their second single, Not Fade Away, investing it with a dark, sexy swagger that gave them their first hit. Bob Dylan was hugely inspired by Holly, catching a glimpse of his own possible future in this small-town geek who wrote and sang his own songs. That is a trio of artists who could be said to have shaped modern popular music. Holly may have played a greater part in all of that had he lived.

When he died, he was just 22 and had released only three albums. But he left a lot of music behind, songs that would subsequently be finished off by his collaborators, with new Holly recordings being released throughout the Sixties. In that sense, he really was a prototype for the necrophilia of rock culture.

It Doesn't Matter Anymore went to number one in Britain the week after the plane crash. The compilation The Buddy Holly Story remained in the charts for three years. In American Pie, Don McLean characterised the plane crash as the day the music died, but really, it is what has kept the music alive. Eternally fixed in his first surge of creative brilliance, Buddy Holly raves on for ever.

Been plodding to and from work in the snow today listening to the Apartment Tapes - seems very appropriate, especially all those versions of Slipping and Sliding.

Quote
Green Lady
Been plodding to and from work in the snow today listening to the Apartment Tapes - seems very appropriate, especially all those versions of Slipping and Sliding.

yes - very appropriate song, Greenlady.
Hope you took care in the wintery weather, today.
I expect Paul McCartney, Bobby Keys, Chuck Leavell, etc.....
are being greeted by similar (if not worse) conditions, in Clear Lake, tonight.

thanks for posting that RS article, Rockman, moving stuff.

Adrian didn't post the complete article which is mainly about
that fatal last flight but thought the piece from Maria was very touching



ROCKMAN

The music didn't die. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper did.

Don McLean is a liar, and his one hit might be the worst piece of sh-t ever recorded.

[www.austin360.com]

What is Buddy Holly's legacy?

Texas singer died 50 years ago after creating music that has influenced generations of bands; exactly what his music means is still being questioned
By Joe Gross


Almost all brief careers in the public eye come with question marks next to them.


Would President Kennedy have kept us out of Vietnam in a second term? Would James Dean have turned into an indelible screen icon like Paul Newman or a fading character actor like Joseph Cotten?


And what would Buddy Holly, a 22-year-old kid from Lubbock, have done with the rest of his life had he not gone down in a small plane 50 years ago on Tuesday, in a freezing Iowa cornfield with a Texas radio DJ who had a fluke hit and a Latino rocker too young to vote ?


Holly's question mark is the largest in American popular music because it reflects two separate issues: What might he have done had he lived past 22, and what does the music he actually made mean?


Between early 1957 and early 1959, Holly did everything before anyone else, or better and more creatively than anyone else, so many things that his importance is both weirdly diluted and perhaps expanded beyond reason.


Holly was the guy who inspired the guys who got superhumanly famous. His career, all of 18 months, really, is reflective of a saying that's always stuck with me: It's not the first person who does something, it's the second.


Defining rock bands

Holly has never had the charisma-bomb resonance of Elvis Presley, about whom you can discuss issues of race and class and appropriation pretty much forever. After all, Holly's single most important innovation was the possibility of rock as team sport.


The Crickets (Buddy Holly on vocals and lead guitar; Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar; Joe B. Mauldin on bass, Jerry Allison on drums) was a band. Holly's first album was credited to the Chirping Crickets.


They invented the rock band as most everyone on the planet thinks of it. The rock band is not guitar, drums, bass, piano. It is not three guitars, sax, bass, drums. The rock band is two guitars, bass, drums.


See also: the Beatles. Then see the Rolling Stones. The Kinks, etc. It's not the first person who does something, it's the second — especially if that second person is a Beatle. A far more vigorous chart presence in the U.K. than the U.S., Holly was adored by John Lennon, who was in turn adored by the whole planet.


And after Sullivan left, citing the rigors of touring, the Crickets headed to Britain as a trio, the first rock power trio. (They were also, by this point, billed as Buddy Holly and the Crickets.) They might not have had the volume but see also Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, etc.


In contrast to the country music he grew up with, Holly wrote much of his own material and was lucky enough to team up with a brilliant producer (Norman Petty) to get it from his head to tape to audiences. Les Paul might have invented multitrack recording, but Holly used it as well or better than anyone. His music grew up in public, fast, in a matter of months.


In fact, every one of Holly's hits has something sonically interesting on it, from the cardboard box Bo Diddley beat on "Not Fade Away" to the cymbals-only drum part on "Well . . . All Right" to the thigh slaps on "Everyday." "Words of Love" and the weirdly underrated "Listen to Me" overdubs jangly guitars and a slightly woozy vocals in a way that essentially invents the Byrds' folk-rock.


His everydude persona and black glasses revised the idea of the rock star even as it was being invented — every one of his hits has something lyrically interesting on it, from the deceptively simple "everyday it's a gettin' faster/ everyone said go ahead and ask her" to that scream of joy on "Oh Boy!"

It's almost punk rock — if that guy who looks like me can do it, I can do it.


No rock hero

The flip side is that the people who formed bands after seeing Holly changed the world and have obscured him.


For example, for a guy who inspired so many to rock so much, his discography is baffling and neglected.


Crickets tracks were issued under Holly's name alone. Demos (some of them up there with his best work) were posthumously released covered with overdubs, sometimes multiple times with completely different music. Endless compilations and re-packagings have appeared in the past 50 years, not one of them deemed definitive.


Is this how you treat a guy who many think had as much to do with defining the parameters of American music as Elvis, Sinatra and Francis Scott Key?


Joe Carducci, whose brilliant and controversial 1990 book "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" might be the most important monograph in the last 20 years on a definition of "rock music," devotes a sentence to Holly: "The Crickets did some minor rocking, but Buddy Holly split for New York, leaving his band behind."

Ouch. According to Carducci's ultra-orthodox definitions of rock, leaving your band behind is something real rockers don't do. Plenty of people agree with him.


Holly's move to New York in 1958, along with his use of strings in songs such as "Raining In My Heart" and "It Doesn't Matter Any More" has long been seen as sign he was scrapping rock 'n' roll for Tin Pan Alley.


Let's say this one more time: We have absolutely no idea what Holly would have done. His recording career lasted about 18 months. He was 22 when he died.


We have no idea.


We can barely agree on what he did do.


Writer to the core

Holly might have looked like everyman. He might have rocked like everyman. But most people couldn't have done what he did. Most people don't have the songs to pull it off.


Holly's music was some of the first rock 'n' roll I ever heard, which I always thought was kind of cool because Holly's music was some of the first rock 'n' roll that anyone on the planet ever heard.


My dad was a big fan, and checked out of the library a two-LP set packed with hits. I've been humming the astounding, hiccuping "Rave On," been thinking about the distant, echoed paradiddles on "Peggy Sue," since I was about 6.


Which is perhaps part of the reason that the best moment for me of the 2006 Rolling Stones show at Zilker Park came when Keith Richards sang a Buddy Holly song. He didn't sing "Not Fade Away," an early Stones single, but, of all things, "Learning the Game." It's a fairly obscure Holly song, a mere demo when Holly died that producer Norman Petty gave a country-pop backing track (another version, overdubbed in New York, sounds like an ad jingle).


"Hearts that are broken and love that's untrue/ These go with learning the game," Richards croaked, completely at odds with his tough guy persona. Yet it worked.


This is why Holly resonates, for the simplest and most complicated reason: the songs.


There might have been something interesting on every one of Holly's hits, but it was always, always, ALWAYS in service to the song.


"When you love her and she doesn't love you/ You're only learning the game."


He found his own sound, his own look, his own everyman persona that inspired thousands who inspired millions. But as a songwriter, he had IT, whatever IT is. Simple and complicated, clear and true.


"When she says that you're the only one she'll ever love/ Then you find that you are not the one she's thinking of."


Songwriter Don McLean famously declared Feb. 3 "The Day The Music Died" in "American Pie." I understand the sentiment, I get the loss of innocence thing. But it's just not true. (And America was never, ever innocent — just ask an Apache.)


In no way did the music die 50 years ago Feb. 3. It couldn't have. Buddy Holly had already lived.

10 Underrated Buddy Holly Songs:-

Everyone with ears knows 'That'll Be The Day,' 'Oh Boy!,' 'Everyday' and my personal all-time favorite 'Rave On.' Here are 10 worth another spin or 10.

1. 'Learning the Game' -- One of the apartment tape demos. A delicate melody, a sophisticated lyric, a perfect ditty in 1:35 (expanded after Holly's death to about two minutes; still amazing)


2. 'Love Me' -- This early B-side might be the most orthodox rockabilly-qua-rockabilly song Holly ever produced.


3. 'Holly Hop' -- An instrumental from 1956 originally recorded in the Holly family garage, it shows off how Holly's economical lead guitar style was already well-developed.


4. 'Tell Me How' -- One of those songs you think the Beatles must have listened to about a million times.


5. 'I'm Looking For Someone To Love' -- Manages to pack two perfectly realized guitar solos into 1:59. To this day, I have no idea what 'drunk man/ street car/ foot slip/ there you are' means in the context of the song. Not a clue.


6. 'Listen to Me' -- Not obscure, but better and better the more you listen to its craftmanship. Very slightly lower-fi sounding than some of the less complicated hits, I keep coming back to the weird, almost surging harmonies.


7. 'I'm Gonna Love You Too' -- Another one the Beatles must have listened to 2 million times, especially the guitars.


8. 'Reminiscing' -- Buddy Holly, soul man. King Curtis' sax subs in for guitars and the rhythm section swings hard.


9. 'Little Baby' -- You can't figure out why the piano is throwing you off a little until you realize it sounds like Bob Dylan, like a retro B-side from 'Blonde on Blonde.'


10. 'Peggy Sue Got Married' -- Another apartment demo fleshed out after Holly died. A happy ending. Or is it?

[www.austin360.com]

... many thanx for posting my image, Adrian-L!
Care to elaborate on how you did that??...
I keep on f*** it up.

kevin Montgomery blogging from the Surf, last night, adding fuel
to the Keith/Ron rumours...

[www.kevinmontgomery.com]




I’m standing on the side of the stage watching Pat Dinizio from The Smithereens soundcheck with one of my old pals and favorite drummers, Kenny Aronoff.
Had a funny thing happen the other night here at the Surf……a stately looking English fellar came to the merch desk after my part of the show. He asked if he could buy a cd. We made small talk…….with me asking him where he was from……somewhere around London he said……..i signed the cd, and then asked him if he’d ever been to the Surf before…..usual small talk……..turns out it was Sir Tim Rice!!! I discovered that today after the symposium i did at Clear Lake Middle School…..he showed up to do his seminar! Crazy. I felt like an oaf.
Ha. More later.
************************************************************************************
It is the morning of January 2nd, 2009. Last night was pretty surreal. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hosted a Super Bowl Party at the Holiday Inn in Mason City. I spent most of the afternoon at The Surf Ballroom soundchecking for tonight’s show. The house band includes Hutch Hutchinson and Kenny Aronoff (Mellencamp,Fogerty)…….and Chuck Leavall from The Rolling Stones……amazing band. I’ve known Kenny for years…..he played on my un-released second record on A&M…..great guy.
At soundcheck i learned i would be singing tonight with Dave Mason on “Cryin’, Waitin’, Hopin’”, and possibly with Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens on “Words of Love”…….so, i’m lying here listening to both songs to brush up. I’ll be opening the show with a lonely version of “Wishing”. I’m really excited about it……..it is an honor to open the show, and i expect they will light it pretty dramatically………alot of pressure, but i’m going to try not to think about the 2,500 people out there and just play it like i always do.
Anyway, i was a little late getting to the Holiday Inn bar……i was the last person out of the Surf actually…..behind all the tired crew members that were looking forward to a night off. I got there and sat down in a booth with Shelby Morrison from the Rock Hall…..she was partly responsible for me coming to Clear Lake, and has been a good friend for the past few years. Sir Tim Rice was seated in the next booth and we waved hello…..i got up to say hello, and just to be polite i introduced myself to the guy sitting in the booth across from him………..older, English guy with long grey hair. He hardly looked up and didn’t offer his name…….so, i made a point to ask him his name again……..i find it very rude and arrogant when people don’t say their name when introduced. I sat down and talked with Sir Tim……..and soon after the “old grey” guy got up and went to the bar…….i asked Sir Tim who it was…..he said, “Peter Gordon from bla, bla , bla”……ok, i just google “Peter Gordon” and he is actually the Gordon of Peter and Gordon. The Peter……oh, that sounded bad because he is actually a nice guy……is Peter Asher, whom i met at Conway Recording studio when i was doing my first record…….he produced alot of the great Linda Rondstadt records…..here they are together (


Anyway, Sir Tim apologized for him and we carried on………sometime later he came to the bar and we got a drink……..i really like that guy………….i spied Johnny Rogers speaking with the guys from Black Sabbath, and being an Ozzy fan and former metalhead of sorts….i wanted to say hello………they pretty much blew me off, but that was cool. There is a pecking order sometimes at these “industry” do’s, and i guess they were doing the peckering.
I ended up hanging with Jerry Allison from The Crickets. I’m very fond of J.I., and his wife Joannie. They’ve always been very sweet to me. He was saying he has known me since i was a baby……he was my dad’s best man at his wedding, and they are kind to me as only you can be when you’ve know someone since they were a child……i hope my son will have people like that in his life someday. J.I. is always up for a laugh, and we sought out as many laughs as possible until he retired.
Well, that is it for now………i’m going to the Surf now to rehearse with Pat, and i reckon Dave Mason. I’ve be videologging tonight, and am really excited about the evening. It is rumored that Keith Richards and Ron Wood are coming…….apparently, Sir Tim Rice has been giving them a hard time and telling them not to miss this special night. I also hear that Paul McCartney is going to show…..i would find it hard to believe that he wouldn’t. Stay tuned…..i’ll try to post a videologue when i come in.
*************************************************************************************
I’m at the Surf…….Chuck Leavall from The Stones just finished singing a spirited version of “Honky Tonk Women”……….and here is a little video of what was happening when i first got here.
Looks like i’m singing “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” and “Listen to Me” with Pat from The Smithereens…….that is what happens when you hang around and Graham Nash doesn’t show up!!!! Ha! Ha!

Big night at Surf's Buddy Holly concert, minus superstars

By KYLE MUNSON • kmunson@dmreg.com • February 3, 2009

[www.desmoinesregister.com]

Clear Lake, Ia. — The big surprise here Monday night at the Surf Ballroom turned out to be no surprise at all.

Speculation swirled for months in advance: Would Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton or another superstar put in an appearance to pay his respects to rock 'n' roll icon Buddy Holly in a "50 Winters Later" commemorative concert?

In the end, none did.

Yet the final tune of the night, Holly's "Not Fade Away," featured a sing-along by a stage full of A-list musicians and an embrace between Maria Elena Holly, Buddy's widow, and Graham Nash, the enthusiastic Holly disciple who co-founded the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Kathy Snyder of Clear Lake, who owns the Surf with her husband, Dale, said that efforts were made as late as Sunday to entice Springsteen to perform in the Surf concert; an emissary left a note in the Boss' guitar case during the Super Bowl halftime show saying that a private jet was available to whisk him away to Iowa on Monday.

The 1959 Winter Dance Party at the Surf marked the final performances by landmark early rockers Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson, who died Feb. 3, 1959, in a plane crash north of town.

Fifty years ago, the $1.25 concert tickets were snapped up by local teenagers who wanted to dance. This time, fans from Britain, Switzerland, Canada and other far-flung locales purchased $85 tickets online.

Monday’s star-studded concert was a full-blown Rock and Roll Hall of Fame production with a rotating cast that included Holly's former band, the Crickets, as well as Nash, Los Lobos, Los Lonely Boys, Peter and Gordon, Joe Ely and Bobby Vee.

The same emcee who stood on the Surf stage in 1959 and introduced the Winter Dance Party musicians grabbed the microphone in front of an audience of 1,800 fans at the start of Monday's “50 Winters Later” concert.

“This has been a poignant week for all of us,” Bob Hale said.

The ballroom’s 2,000-person capacity was reduced by about 200 to accommodate six high-definition cameras, two cranes and all the cables, barricades and operators that come with it .

Yet it turned out to be a festive, relaxed atmosphere dominated by those who could remember the ’50s. The audience even sang an impromptu “Happy Birthday” to Nash, who turned 67 during this, his first pilgrimage to the Surf.

“This is what we’ve all been waiting for,” Tommy Allsup, Holly’s guitarist from the original 1959 tour, said of the evening.

The song “Wishing” began the night, sung by Kevin Montgomery, whose father, Bob, formed the Buddy & Bob rockabilly duo with Holly and co-wrote the tune.

Wanda Jackson belted out “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” the Chuck Berry song that Holly performed on tour in 1959. Texas troubadour Joe Ely tore through “Oh Boy,” complete with a screaming sax solo.

Delbert McClinton cranked out a bluesy cover of “Chantilly Lace,” the Bopper’s signature hit. Later, the Bopper's son, Jay P. "Big Bopper Jr." Richardson, performed his own rendition of the same tune.

Two of the night’s highlights came courtesy of songwriters performing their own tunes with guests: Dave Mason of Traffic cranked out “Feelin’ Alright” with help from McClinton and Montgomery, while Ely tore through “Are You Listening Lucky?” with Los Lobos as his backing band.

Los Lobos also was joined on stage by the extended Valens family – decked out in matching “La Bamba Boys” and “La Bamba Ladies” T-shirts – as well as Maria Elena Holly, for the anticipated “La Bamba” sing-along.

Des Moines City Councilwoman Christine Hensley and her husband, Steve, have attended Winter Dance Party reunions at the Surf for 20 years. On Monday, Hensley was decked out in a ’50s waitress costume, complete with order notepad.

“I’m totally out of character!” she laughed.

Christopher and Ing-Mari Vock, who live in the mountains of Switzerland, attended Monday’s show.

“In 1957, I was in school in Worcester, Massachusetts, and New York,” said Christopher, 66. “That was the first time I heard American music.”

The house band included Chuck Leavell, veteran keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. The man on drums was Kenny Aronoff, who rose to fame in John Mellencamp’s band .

Despite a bone-chilling temperature of -4 degrees and a wind chill that dipped to 27 degrees below zero, a diehard gaggle of about 30 fans and reporters later made a post-show pilgrimage to the crash site north of town for a 1 a.m. observance - about the time of the 1959 crash. The Surf's president, Jeff Nicholas, built a bonfire near the site to help keep fans warm. They gathered around the stainless steel memorial while Nicholas said a prayer and a plane flew overhead. One fan passed around his bottle of rum. There was a sing-along of Don McLean's Holly tribute, "American Pie."

At the end of Monday's concert at the Surf, Nicholson choked back tears as he arranged for a moment of silence with the house lights down as three stars were projected on the ballroom's ceiling.

"We've had a blast putting this together, and we hope you feel we have done it with respect," he said.

Fans seemed to agree. Even without McCartney, Springsteen or another big name to cap the concert, many fans stayed past midnight while the camera crew packed up and Holly's "True Love Ways" and the Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" reverberated through the ballroom.

They ended the night doing the same thing that teens loved to do at the Surf in the '50s: They danced.

Glasvegas' James Allan: 'Buddy Holly was a real rebel, a real punk'Buddy Holly taught me how to write songs, believe in myself … and make my sister laugh


[www.guardian.co.uk]

When I was younger, I always knew there were two things that could make my sister Denise laugh. One of them was an impression of Goofy, and the other was to sing like Buddy Holly. I'd do it in the almost hiccuping style that Buddy used: "Love like yours will surely come my way … a-hey, a-hey, a-hey." And no matter how upset she was or how much she'd been crying because she never got the right shoes or whatever, I could always cheer her up with that.

I knew the song Everyday from watching the film Stand By Me. We watched it all the time and could recite it word for word. At the time I just loved the movie and the music, I didn't even know it was Buddy Holly singing. But years later, it was that song that led me to find out more about him. I think I actually bought my first Buddy Holly record in Asda! But that's often where you find a lot of music like that. And once I started to delve even deeper, I just fell in love with the songs.

I don't mind admitting that Buddy was a direct influence on our work. I just love the sound when you play G, C and D, and a lot of his songs use those chords. It's pretty simple but it's also sincere, soulful and electrifying.

In fact, when I wrote Flowers and Football Tops it came from me sitting in the living room singing Love is Strange with a guitar. I don't know why, but I started singing "Baby, why you not home yet?" and the song came from there. Now that I've said that they'll probably try and sue me. But there you go, I need to be honest.

Buddy Holly has inspired me in other ways, not just musical ones. When we made our early demos, I wanted good things for the others in the band. And sometimes I felt when I wrote something like Daddy's Gone that I might be holding them back. I thought, "Who would want to listen to these songs? With these kind of lyrics?" But when I found out more about Buddy Holly, through books and films, I realised how courageous he was. He stuck to his guns and stood his ground. That takes courage and that's why a lot of people really connected with him.

A song like Maybe Baby has a timeless sound. You've got the sound and the voice – that was all he needed. A lot of his songs might sound sweet and sugary now, but at that time for an artist to write his own songs and have the charm and vision to be able to execute all the moves and sing on all those records … that was pretty revolutionary.

It's the same with his glasses, they just look great. He was an originator there. I don't know if it was quite geeky at the time or he was just blind as a bat, but those frames are a classic. I'm going to get a pair because I'm blind as a bat too, and I've had enough of waking up and having to put on sunglasses to see. It's nice to let some light into your life.

For a lot of the youth today, with 50 years of popular music behind them, it's sometimes hard to understand Buddy Holly's music. But at the time, it pinned a lot of people against the wall. It was unique. He was a real rebel, a real punk. And because of him I gained the courage to stick to my guns and be myself. And I think, if you're true to yourself, it can only really end with blue skies and angels.

How did I miss this thread DOH !

Indecently BAxlap, McLean had another it.

Quote
Nanker Phlegm
How did I miss this thread DOH !

Indecently BAxlap, McLean had another it.

Oh yeah, that nearly as bad one, Vincent, about Van Gogh.

[news.bbc.co.uk]

[news.bbc.co.uk]

Buddy Holly died 50 years ago, but his music lives on, including his hit Peggy Sue. But who was it about and what's it like to be immortalised in a popular song? Caroline Frost meets the real Peggy Sue.

Fifty years ago today the music died, according to Don McLean at least - the day when Buddy Holly was killed in an aeroplane crash at the peak of his talents and passed into rock 'n' roll legend.

In the half-century since, as well as inspiring McLean's thumping standard American Pie, Holly has been recognised as one of popular music's great pioneers, his influence felt by everyone from Bob Dylan to the Beatles and Run-DMC. For one woman in particular, though, he's remained especially close. WHO WAS PEGGY SUE FOR?

It's widely claimed Holly originally wrote song as Cindy Lou, and...
Jerry Allison (pictured above with Peggy Sue Gerron on their wedding day)asked Holly to change it to Peggy Sue, says John Gribbin
Allison had split up with Peggy Sue Gerron and thought the move would help him win her back, it's claimed
However, Ms Gerron denies the claim

Peggy Sue Gerron, a sweet-faced woman of 68, is an unlikely piece of walking rock 'n' roll memorabilia. But in 1957, she was the girlfriend of Holly's best pal, Jerry Allison, and so became the inspiration for the singer's jiving classic.

Today, Ms Gerron smiles and plays down her role of musical muse, when asked.

"I think he decided he was going to write a girl's song, and sometime during the middle of the night he got Norman Petty, the producer, and he told him, 'I've written this song and I've named it after Jerry's girlfriend, Peggy Sue'."

Holly was already a radio star when she first encountered him. In a scene that could have come straight from a movie, Holly was rushing to a high school gig in Sacramento, California, when he sent a young Ms Gerron flying on the steps.

"He ran over to me, guitar in one hand, amp in the other, and said, 'I don't have time to pick you up, but you sure are pretty', before he ran off. So another girl came and helped me pick up my books and she said, 'Do you know who that was? That was Buddy Holly.'

Three weeks later, Ms Gerron was on a date with her future husband Jerry Allison - a drummer in Holly's group The Crickets - who introduced her to his friend Buddy, "and he started laughing, Jerry asked him what was so funny, and he said 'I've already overwhelmed your Peggy Sue.'"

Still a teenager, Peggy Sue first heard the song written for her in a packed school auditorium in the company of hundreds of screaming teenagers, and Holly hadn't let her down.

Deceptively simple

"I was just delighted, I thought it was a fascinating song. It's really hard to stand still when you're listening to Peggy Sue." PEGGY SUE LYRICS
Peggy Sue
Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, Peggy Sue
Oh, my Peggy, my Peggy Sue
Oh, well, I love you gal and I need you, Peggy Sue

Peggy Sue, by Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison and Norman Petty

The song stands as one of Holly's classics - "right up at the top" according to John Gribbin, author of the recent book Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly.

"It's like most Buddy Holly songs," he says of the two-minute, 30-second classic. "They are deceptively simple. He wrote songs that are easy to play, easy to listen to and to dance to. He knew that would spread the word about his music."

But Holly's huge success came to an abrupt end on 3 February 1959, when he died, aged 22, in a plane crash while on tour. The news of the accident that killed Holly and fellow musicians Richie Valens and the Big Bopper only 18 months later was as shocking to the Allisons - Peggy Sue had married Jerry in 1958 - as to everyone else. Jerry Allison had quit the band before Holly's last tour and the couple were staying with Holly's parents.

"Somebody called the house and told us the Crickets were dead, so Jerry made some calls," remembers Ms Gerron. "It turned out Mr and Mrs Holly didn't know, they actually heard about it on the radio."

Holly's premature death did nothing to stem his popularity, with songs such as Peggy Sue, Not Fade Away, Maybe Baby and That'll Be the Day becoming enduring classics. Ms Gerron has long been used to hearing her name sung in the car, the supermarket, the lift. She's also adept at dealing with the question left dangling in the air whenever she meets someone new.

Prom dress

"I'm introduced, and there's a pause, and they say, 'Oh, are you...?' and I say 'Yes, I'm Peggy Sue.'"
When you are raising children you want them to be secure and normal and you don't want the entertainment industry in their lives

Peggy Sue Gerron, pictured today

Despite the kick it evidently still gives her, she is not blind to the preconceptions that can come with such a celebrated moniker.

"People have their own image of who you are and what you are. I think certain people expect things of me, that no one else would be called upon to do. They look at me and go, well she can afford to do that, and that's not always accurate."

They also sometimes are wrong-footed by the sight of a grandmother in her late 60s - somehow expecting the subject of this half-century-old teenage love song to be preserved in a polka-dot prom dress.

"I think they have me frozen in time, I think when most people think of me, it's as a young woman frozen in an era that has long passed. But it hasn't limited me. You have to be you, and I couldn't stand up and say, well, no, that's not me."

The song has certainly afforded Ms Gerron rare opportunities in life.

"Yeah, it's allowed me to meet people and do things I wouldn't otherwise. Dick Clark [the US TV chat show host] calls for me to come over and do the show... that doesn't happen to Jane Doe."

Yet there was a big part of her life when she didn't play up to the reputation as Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue - as wife to her second husband (her first marriage, to Allison, broke up), mother to their two children and business partner in the couple's small plumbing business in California. For a long time the children knew little of their mother's past. WHAT MAKES IT UNUSUAL?
The song features Holly's combined rhythm/lead guitar style
Holly had someone stand by to flick a switch on his Fender Stratocaster mid-way through when the guitar tone changes
"Normally a guitarist would do that himself," says John Gribbin. "But this is played so fast Holly hadn't the time to reach down."


"I didn't want them to think that we were different, that we had an edge. When you are raising children you want them to be secure and normal and you don't want the entertainment industry in their lives."

And serious Holly fans will know Ms Gerron's name appears in not one, but two, song titles by their idol - the other being, Peggy Sue Got Married. Striking a more melancholy note than its predecessor, it was recorded by Holly on a home tape recorder in 1958 and only heard after Holly's death.

Today Ms Gerron makes the most of her footnote role in pop history. Last year she published an autobiography, Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?, and she will be marking the 50th anniversary of Holly's death as a guest of honour at the opening of the Buddy musical in Melbourne Australia.

So, inspiring one of the most famous songs by one of the century's most popular musicians - weighing it all up, is that a burden or a privilege?

Peggy Sue smiles again. "A privilege, always. I never get tired of it."

.....um, Coffee a bit strong today??

Buddy Holly Remembered 50 Years After His Death
By Greg Flakus
Lubbock, Texas
03 February 2009


[www.voanews.com]

On February 3, 1959, a small plane crashed in a corn field in Iowa, killing three rock and roll stars - Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, known as "The Big Bopper".


Statue of Buddy Holly in Lubbock, Texas
The 50th anniversary of that tragic event is being observed by rock fans around the world, but especially in Clear Lake, Iowa - the scene of their last performance, where a large concert is planned, and in Buddy Holly's hometown of Lubbock, Texas.

Charles Hardin Holly, known to his family and friends as Buddy, was only 22 years old when he died, but he had by that time created a guitar-driven rock and roll style that would live on among rock bands around the world.

In only a few years, the Lubbock native created hit songs that are still played today - classics like "That'll be the Day," inspired by a line John Wayne spoke in the western movie "The Searchers".

Holly rocked his fans with songs like "Peggy Sue" and "Maybe Baby" and then soothed them with ballads like "Everyday".

The song marked the first use in pop music of a celesta - an instrument mainly associated with classical music performances.

Fans say Holly's music still relevant

Holly's style and musical experimentation appealed to many up-and-coming musicians, especially in Britain, where he has many fans even among people born long after his death.


Phil and Caroline Jenkins
Among the British visitors to Lubbock for the 50th anniversary of Holly's death are Phil and Caroline Jenkins.

"The Beatles and the Rolling Stones - they all credit Buddy as being a major influence," Jenkins said. "It seems that you get more in England than you do here. He is bigger there than he is here. You know, he is bigger there than he is here. Lots of people here we talk to go, 'Who?' They don't know the name."

Jessica Camacho helps run the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, which is holding panel discussions and special events to commemorate Holly's death.


Jessica Camacho
Camacho is only 26 years old, but she says she recognizes the importance of Holly - not only to her hometown, but also to the world of music.

"I don't know how many younger people realize what kind of influence Buddy Holly had even on the music that they hear today that they love. I think his influence was far reaching," Camacho said.

Friend says Holly strove for recognition

There are still many people living here in Lubbock who knew Buddy Holly well. Among them is former musician and disc jockey Jack Neal, who was Buddy Holly's first musical partner on a local radio show. He sat in on jam sessions with Holly and a young rock singer from Memphis, Tennessee named Elvis Presley, just months before Elvis went on to become a legend himself.


Jack Neal
"I truly believe that if Buddy had still been living, he would have been as big as Elvis, if not bigger, because of the two different styles of people that they were," Neal said.

Neal knew Buddy Holly as a close friend as well as an artist, and he misses him still. He recalls one of his last conversations with him, not long before he died.

"He was in town and we were at one of the drive-ins and it was just before he left to go on that last tour and he said he wanted people to know Buddy Holly," Neal recalled. "He wanted them to know the name. He said the money was nice, but he wanted people to know the name. And so that was his goal and that is exactly what he did."

The fatal plane crash in Iowa was commemorated in 1973 by singer/songwriter Don McLean in his hit song, "American Pie," which spoke of "the day the music died." But most Buddy Holly fans say his music never died and that it lives on in the rock and roll he helped create.

I was 11 years old when Buddy, Ritchie and Big Bopper went down in that plane crash. It shook me up so bad that I didn't read the newspapers about until the 70's. See, being from L.A. Ritchie was our homeboy, my father dug the Big Bopper and everyone dug Buddy Holly. I had just seen Buddy on the Dick Clark Saturday show a few weeks before. So, it hurt. Yeah, Feb 3rd 1959 was a rude awakening. But contrary to popular belief the music didn't die, it was sick for awhile and then it got better: Motown, Stax, James Brown, the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, the Wall of Sound, the Impressions, the blues resurgence, cool Am radio, even cooler FM sounds. Even now the three stars are flowing through the veins of Springsteen, U2, Prince, all of the roc Espanol stuff, Elvis Costello. cool country music and more. Yeah, they might of left us but the music went on.

the music's here to stay ~ love & light, thanks & praises

Quote
Nanker Phlegm
How did I miss this thread DOH !

Indecently BAxlap, McLean had another it.

Ya Vincent is crap, but who is actually the liar ?

only kiddin'

WHAT GOES ON - MOJO March 2009



ROCKMAN

Keith & the Crickets






IORR............but I like it!

"

&hl

Bob Dylan reminisces about Buddy at his Grammy Acceptance speech in 1998 - the show he refers to took place 3 days before Holly was killed.

(He also quotes Robert Johnson's 'Stop Breaking Down'- which the Stones covered - in his speech)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-02-06 00:41 by Gazza.

Dylans still one cool motherhubbard!

50 years later MN woman reveals only known photos of Buddy Holly's last show



[www.msnbc.msn.com]


CLEAR LAKE, Iowa -- It's been 50 years between trips, but Monday night Mary Gerber of Walters, Minnesota was back at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

"I can remember that night standing here," says Mary from her spot on the dance floor about 30 feet from the stage.

Mary was 16, star struck and unaware that within hours Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and JP Richardson, the Big Bopper, would be dead in a plane crash just a few miles from the Surf.

The old ballroom still stands as a living monument to that night, but for 50 years no one has been able to produce a single photograph or piece of film the Surf's most significant event.

No one until Mary. "They're probably not the best pictures, but I didn't have a fancy camera back then."

The newly framed pictures now hang in the Surf's museum. Seven photos snapped by Mary that night at the concert - then tucked away. "You put them in a drawer. Your life goes on. You start raising a family."

The photos featuring multiple shots of Buddy Holly and Richie Valens on stage at the Surf are now public for the first time in 50 years after Mary saw an ad in the Albert Lea newspaper placed by a documentary film maker. "I didn't think they would ever be a big deal," she confesses. She couldn't have been more wrong.

"It's just incredible to have those," says Laurie Lietz, The Surf's executive director. "It gives us goose bumps, when we saw them it was unbelievable.

One shot of Dion and the Belmonts on stage is of particular interest to rock historians, though the uneducated will have to look close to see why. "Buddy Holly was playing drums," explains Mary, "because their drummer was on the bus, that froze his feet or something, so Buddy filled in for them as a drummer."

So why weren't there more cameras that night? At first Mary wondered that too. "And when I left the Surf that night I seen the sign, on the way out, it said 'no cameras allowed.'

Fifty years ago Monday night Mary Gerber broke the rules - and rock and roll history is richer because of it.

the first Mary Gerber photo, to be published.
(Note:- Carlo from The Belmonts,sitting in on drums.)

Slight inaccuracy, in the article posted above.
The Gerber photos, are not the first known in existence, from 2/2/59, though
they are, most definitely, the first to be available in the public domain.

Richard Houkoos' fabled, never-published photos
(seen by only afew enthuasiasts and historians),
being the only other known source.

National Public Radio link on the subject .

[www.npr.org]