Buddy Holly - Remembered 60 years on

Buddy Holly's legacy - 60 years on

Colourised picture of Buddy Holly, England 1958

February 3rd 1959, the day the music died but didn't.

The legacy of Buddy Holly's musical life remains strong and rightly so. If you dig into the past, here was a performer whose music shaped much that followed.

Buddy Holly was in the right place at the right time, in post WW2 America. America emerged from WW2 in a better position than countries in the European region devastated by 6 years of war.

Bill Haley's Comets - Hot Rods and rock n' roll - 

ingredients that lit the fuse for a generation

In the Texas state, in 50's America, Western Swing, Hillbilly mountain music and country music were ingredients waiting when Bill Hailey lit the fuse commercially in 1954 with Rock around the clock.

Buddy Holly's journey through musical styles led to country and as soon as Elvis played Lubbock, Buddy's style changed overnight. In 1955, Texas Rockabilly became an important local style of music - like jazz, it moved forward gaining and developing as new players emerged on the scene.

Being able to pick up music from Mexican radio stations had an influence on Buddy and the Crickets too, Heartbeat being just one of Buddy's songs, with the Latin beat combined with a country music double-stop intro and solo. 'Tex-Mex' they called it.

Norman Petty the genius musical producer

Whilst Buddy Holly was emerging as a songwriter and evolving his musical group into the Crickets, another catalysing force was about to enter the story. 

Norman Petty had learned about electronics during his WW2 military service and became the Texas answer to Sam Phillips who ran the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis producing Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and countless other stars.

Like Sam Phillips and Les Paul, Norman Petty was pushing the technological and music recording boundaries. All three were using echo, microphone effects and multi tracking and producing ground-breaking sound.

Fender Sunburst Stratocaster

In 1954, Leo Fender put his legendary Fender Stratocaster guitar into production and Buddy Holly purchased one in 1956 with the help of his brother. This guitar looked futuristic then and has not dated really since, seeing off many imitators and copies.

In the studio, Buddy Holly's style and songs combined with the studio production and use of the then basic studio effects produced legendary music. The Stratocaster and his 4x10 Fender Bassman amplifier were integral to this process too.

Use of tripping echo by Petty, where Buddy's vocal line was decaying as he was starting to sing a new one sound very effective. Flipping the drums through a natural sound and echo chamber sound during the solo, was simple but effective. 

Buddy Holly used his guitar as more than just accompaniment. His guitar was used more dynamically, like a piano and right out at the forefront. 

Although Buddy did play lead runs on the guitar, various Crickets line-ups did include lead guitarists such as Sonny Curtis or Tommy Allsup for example.

Hank Marvin in 1960 - the influence extended to the glasses!

However the end result was arrived at, the legacy of this great music continues. You only have to play one of the tracks and the sound is just electric. There is something that just sets it apart from a lot of other music. It never dates.

Play along to Buddy Holly's songs and something mystical happens, you start playing things that you wouldn't normally play, phrases, notes, chord variations - it is mystical and plain spooky. It is almost like the legacy is pushing you on, evolving.

The Buddy Holly legacy even in its early days influenced guitarists who would influence others. In Britain, guitarist Hank Marvin who would find fame with the Shadows wanted a Stratocaster after seeing one on the Chirping Crickets LP cover, going on to play the first new one imported into the UK in 1959.

The Buddy Holly statue in Lubbock Texas

The Shadows (then the Drifters) backing Cliff Richard, recorded a live LP at Abbey Road studios including a Buddy Holly track the day before Buddy died. Hank Marvin developed an instrumental style of playing and covered a number of Buddy Holly tracks on his Hank plays Holly CD.

Although Buddy Holly never was able to use the tremolo arm in his playing, Hank Marvin did, incorporating it into his style, to help the guitar emulate a singing human voice.

Players including Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, Andy Summers and George Harrison amongst many, cited Hank Marvin as a major influence.Keith Richards was also influenced by Buddy Holly's music too, 'he had everything' Richards said on a television program about Buddy Holly. Indeed he did. 

Bobby Vee - who stepped in to play on Feb 3rd 1959

The immediate vacuum left by Buddy Holly's death was filled by artists such as Bobby Vee, who would later play with a version of the Crickets and put out some catchy hits such as 'Rubber Ball'. 

The music that followed was in retrospect syrupy and often bland, succumbing to a 'Bobby syndrome'  - a singer often named 'Bobby' whether their original name or not, usually wearing a sport jacket, driving a Ford Thunderbird and with an immaculately coiffured hair.

This fitted the direction America was going in the 1950's towards a consumer society of white picket fence, white middle class citizens living in a land of plenty and opportunity. And safe. Like something out of a 1950's soap series.

Long gone was the now out of fashion wild and leather clad style of Gene Vincent or MArlon Brando's 'Wild one'. Eddie Cochran's 'Something else' predated Punk Rock by twenty years, but was way ahead of its time. It didn't fit with the preppy and acceptable saccharine mush of the new decade of the 1960s.

Buddy Holly was in his last months refining his songwriting style and moving and developing his career into something bigger. His move to Manhattan in New York, a cosmopolitan 24-hour town, away from the staid and conservative Lubbock, was opening up new possibilities for him including acting. 

Interestingly, John Lennon, another performer greatly influenced by Buddy Holly also lived in New York in his final months. If you compare one of Lennon's last tracks 'Nobody told me,' you can hear a 'Holly-esque' echo laden sound, it is almost like the whole thing came full circle.

The simple memorial stone to Buddy Holly at Lubbock

With Buddy Holly's death, we are fortunate that Maria Elena Holly and Buddy's family have allowed the legacy of work and his life to be accessible.

With a Buddy Holly Centre and a museum devoted to artefacts Buddy owned in his life, we are thankfully able to see the legacy large as life and not hidden away for the privileged few or family to see.

Rave On - a great compilation album

In 1983 I bought a double cassette tape that was called 'Then came rock n' roll.' I still have it, on that was 'That'll be the day' by Buddy Holly and it was just such a great sound. 

Around that time I was in a band with some friends I had been at school with and I was in a second hand shop that also sold guitars and I found 'Rave on' a compilation of Buddy Holly's songs. It opened with 'Rave on'.

When I heard that song I was blown away, I played it again to appreciate the sound and what was going on. It sounded immense. Having tracked down many of Buddy's songs over the years, what is apparent is there was so much potential in that music, intensely written and recorded. Who knows where it would have gone onto?

In 1992 I saw the Buddy Holly stage show in London and bought the cassette tape, on that was a track I hadn't heard called  'Its so easy' and what a great track that is. In the round, there are just so many great tracks to choose from them in this legacy that is Buddy Holly. 

Can you choose a definitive Buddy Holly track? Difficult. There are so many. Everyone has a favourite. That's the great thing, the songs sound fresh as though they were recorded yesterday and people still love them.