All About Buddy Holly

It's hard to believe that Buddy Holly was only 22 years old when he was killed (along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper) in that fateful plane crash on February 3rd, 1959. Born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, Charles Hardin Holley was already recording when he was still a teenager. Along with the rest of the Crickets, he had his first big hit records just around the time that he turned 21 years old in 1957.

Buddy's musical career started very early, while he was still in Junior High School in Lubbock. He and his friend Bob Montgomery were a duo, and would play country and western songs live at any function they could find that would have them. Before long they had begun to incorporate rhythm and blues songs into their act, as Buddy, Bob, and the other teenagers in the Lubbock area were starting to develop a taste for this new "rock 'n' roll" music that was catching on in many parts of the country around 1953. They started to perform live on local radio station KDAV, and eventually they became a trio, taking on a third member, bassist Larry Welborn. They did record a number of songs in 1954 and 1955, although none of these recordings were released until several years after Buddy's death.

Marty Robbins' manager, Eddie Crandall, was instrumental in getting Buddy his first recording contract in early 1956. Crandall hooked Buddy up with talent agent Jim Denny, who in turn contacted Decca's Nashville A & R man, Paul Cohen, who liked what he heard and got Decca executive Paul Stone to offer Buddy a contract. The only drawback was that Decca was interested only in Buddy, and not in his longtime partner Bob Montgomery, or Larry Welborn. Buddy was apprehensive at first, but Montgomery convinced him not to let this oppurtunity go by. Buddy recorded 12 songs for Decca in 1956, with 11 of them being released in the 50s, although 7 of the songs were not released until after he had become popular with the Crickets. Unfortunately none of the Decca records ever became hits. Studio musician Grady Martin played the rhythm guitar on these records, as Decca did not want Holly playing rhythm guitar while he was singing. They were concerned about feedback from Buddy's guitar leaking into the microphone, as there was no laying down of tracks in those days. Songs were recorded just like in a live performance. When this Decca group performed live they were billed as Buddy Holly & His Band, although Decca later dubbed the group "Buddy Holly & the Three Tunes" on some records that were released after Holly had become famous with the Crickets.

Buddy's big break came when he visited record producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico in early 1957. Petty told Buddy to go back to Lubbock, get his band together, and rehearse some songs. The one song that Buddy and Jerry Allison were really working on was something called "That'll Be The Day." The title was taken from a John Wayne movie called "The Searchers." Wayne had used that phrase throughout the movie. Buddy had already recorded a version of the song for Decca, but the label did not plan on ever releasing it, and frankly, the Decca version was not all that good. When they were ready to record they drove to Clovis. Taking the trip were Buddy, Jerry Allison, Niki Sullivan, and Larry Welborn, who had agreed to play the bass on the session. Don Guess was dropped from the group as he was unwilling to buy a bass, and the lease had just expired on a bass that he had rented for the past year. Sonny Curtis was gone too, as by this time Buddy wanted to be the lead guitarist, and Curtis was not interested in playing rhythm guitar. Sonny Curtis eventually became Holly's replacement in the Crickets when Buddy died, and he proved to be by far the second most talented member of the group, writing hit songs like "I Fought The Law," "Walk Right Back" (Everly Brothers), and believe it or not, he also wrote and sang the television theme for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

When they got to Clovis in the winter of 1957, they recorded two tracks, "That'll Be The Day," and "I'm Looking For Someone To Love." By this time Petty had gotten Brunswick Records interested in Buddy. Because of contract problems with Decca they could not release the record under the name of Buddy Holly, so they decided to call themselves the Crickets, supposedly getting the inspiration for the name from the Spiders, an R&B vocal group from New Orleans. Despite playing on those first two recordings, Larry Welborn was never actually a member of the Crickets; the group having added bassist Joe B. Mauldin as a permanent member before the recordings from the session had even been released.

The record took off big time in the summer of 1957, prompting Decca to release the earlier version of "That'll Be The Day" in the hopes of stealing away some of the sales of the record. The Brunswick version by "The Crickets" became a huge national hit, igniting the career of Buddy Holly. After a while the contract problems with Decca were resolved. This enabled Brunswick to release records by the Crickets on the Brunswick label, and at the same time release records by Buddy Holly on their Coral Records subsidiary, even though all of the recordings featured the entire Crickets group. Over the next year or so Buddy Holly and the Crickets had several big hit records, until Buddy decided to "really" become a solo act late in 1958. After recording a slew of new songs he headed out on a tour in early 1959. Unfortunately he never completed that tour, as February 3rd, 1959 became "The Day The Music Died" as termed in Don McLean's classic song, "American Pie" in 1971.

Buddy Holly was the most progressive rock and roll star of the 50s. His sound changed tremendously over the course of just about two years of recording. Several of his songs (Well...All Right, Words Of Love, True Love Ways) were years ahead of their time. We'll never know what he may have gone on to if he had lived, but one thing is for sure, Buddy Holly is certainly NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN.