Texas native Buddy Holly
Yes, he is only one of the famous folks to have come out of Lubbock, Texas but in many estimations, he helped start the rock ‘n Roll revolution with his songwriting and performances. He lived from 1936 until his untimely death in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, a day also known as “The Day The Music Died.”
He was so influential, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at #13 on their list of the most influential artists of all time. He was born with the last name of Holley, but someone at Decca Records misspelled it as Holly.
Those of you of a certain age who grew up with black and white TV sets can remember that Buddy Holly & The Crickets performed “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue” on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1, 1957. They also sang “Peggy Sue” on The Arthur Murray Party on December 29 and were given a polite introduction by Kathryn Murray as you can see in our first music video.
Unlike the movie version of The Buddy Holly story, when Buddy Holly and the Crickets performed at The Apollo, the all black audience did not immediately warm up to them. It actually took several performances for the audience to start moving and clapping and after that they were fans for life.
The first song to commemorate the musicians was “Three Stars” by Eddie Cochran. He also sang “Sweet Little 16.” This song was recorded only one day after the plane crash. In 1971, Don McLean released his single, “American Pie”, a song about Buddy Holly’s death and it accentuated the loss of the United States’ innocence. Don McLean’s song referrred to the tragedy as “The Day the Music Died”.
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I try to get my grandson (age 13) to listen to Buddy Holly and the originators of Rock, but he has tunnel vision and can only listen to this new music of today. Which to me is not music…
Hard to believe how MUCH sound “they” got out of those 3 & 4 pc. bands back in the 50s–60s. Nope; these youngans don’t know what it all about!! Only half serious.
What a great story