Welcome To AlbumLinerNotes.com
"The #1 Archive of Liner Notes in the World!"
Your Subtitle text
Holly Greatest Hits
To download this album via iTunes, click here: 
To buy this album from Amazon.com, click here: Buddy Holly - Greatest Hits
__________________________________________________
Buddy Holly
Greatest Hits
MCA Records
MCAD 11213
__________________________________________________
Ultimate MasterDisc
1. That’ll Be The Day
(Norman Petty – Buddy Holly – Jerry Allison)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February 25, 1957
Larry Welborn: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan, June Clark, Gary & Ramona Tollet: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55009
2. I’m Looking For Someone To Love
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February 25, 1957
Larry Welborn: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan, June Clark, Gary & Ramona Tollet: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55009
3. Words Of Love
(Buddy Holly)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, April 8, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Originally Coral single 61852
4. Not Fade Away
(Charles Hardin – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, May 27, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
probably Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, Niki Sullivan: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55035
5. Everyday
(Charles Hardin – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, May 27, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Norman Petty: celeste
Originally Coral single 61885
6. Oh Boy!
(Sunny West – Bill Tighman – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55035
7. Peggy Sue
(Jerry Allison – Norman Petty – Buddy Holly)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Coral single 61185
8. I’m Gonna Love You To
(Joe Mauldin – Niki Sullivan – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later); cricket (chirping)
Originally Coral 61947
9. Maybe Baby
(Norman Petty – Charles Hardin)
Recorded Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
September 27 – 28, 1957
Niki Sullivan: second lead guitar
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
The Picks (background vocals, added later in Clovis)
Originally Brunswick single 55053
10. Rave On
(Sunny West – Bill Tighman – Norman Petty)
Recorded Bell Sound Studios, New York City, New York
January 26, 1958
Produced by Norman Petty and Bob Thiele
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Norman Petty: piano
Originally Coral single 61985
11. Think It Over
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February, 1958
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Vi Petty: piano
The Roses: Bob Linville, Ray Bush, David Bingham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55072
12. Fool’s Paradise
(Sonny LeGlaire – Horace Linsley – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February, 1958
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Vi Petty: piano
The Roses: Bob Linville, Ray Bush, David Bingham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55072
13. Early In The Morning
(Bobby Darin – Woody Harris)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
June 19, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Sam “The Man” Taylor: tenor sax
Panama Francis: drums
The Helen Way Singers: background vocals
remainder unknown
Originally Coral single 62006
14. It’s So Easy
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico
June – August, 1958
Buddy Holly (vocal – rhythm guitar);
Tommy Allsup (lead guitar);
Joe Mauldin (bass);
Jerry Allison (drums);
The Roses (background vocals)
Originally Brunswick single 55094
15. Heartbeat
(Bob Montgomery – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico
June – August, 1958
Buddy Holly: vocal and rhythm guitar
Tommy Allsup: lead guitar
George Atwood: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Originally Coral single 62051
16. True Love Ways
(Norman Petty – Buddy Holly)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Sam “The Man” Taylor: tenor sax
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62210
17. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
(Paul Anka)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62074
18. Raining In My Heart
(Boudleaux Bryant – Felice Bryant)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62074
Buddy Holly – vocals and lead guitar (all tracks, except as noted)
__________________________________________________
All songs produced by Norman Petty except as indicated.
__________________________________________________
Compiled and coordinated by Andy McKaie
Remastered from original masters by Glenn Meadows, Masterfonics, Nashville, TN
Art Direction: Vartan
Photo Research: Geary Chansley
Photo Courtesies:
Front & Back Covers: John Beecher;
Original Ads: Showtime Archives (Toronto) / Colin Escott;
Records – Inside Spread: Dr. Demento
Inlay Card: Jim Schafer
__________________________________________________
Sputnik I was orbiting earth when “Peggy Sue” first shook our jukeboxes. Eisenhower was President, and in 1957 rock ‘n’ roll was still deemed as an auditory viral infection that would, like a Soviet satellite, soon run its course. Buddy Holly is one of the prime reasons rock ‘n’ roll did not, like the calypso craze of the same era, wind down like some musical hula hoop. Holly surely wasn’t the sole artist to presage rock ‘n’ roll’s later development: There was Elvis with his overwhelming force field; Little Richard with his defiant primal scream; Chuck Berry with his “kid friendly” gateway to the blues. Holly may have been less flamboyantly charismatic than those men, but is gifts were arguably more varied than theirs, too.
Imagine the Beatles without Holly and his Crickets as role models. You can’t, nor can you imagine many of the other “British Invasion” sounds which were clearly recycled Hollyisms. More than that of Presley or the R&B-turned R ‘n’ R acts, Holly’s image and sound were accessible to the British. But even without the Beatles or any similar Holly inspired pop phenom in the years after his death, his work stands out from his contemporaries purely on his own merits.
Those merits were a blend of pop craftsmanship, rockabilly irreverence, and R&B showmanship refracted through Holly’s distinctly personal lens. Holly wrote (or co-wrote) much of his most memorable material, worked up innovative arrangements for his recordings, and excelled as rhythm and lead guitarist as well as vocalist. (There had been plenty of guitarslinger singers in R&B, but Holly was the first white rocker of note to perform this dual role.) Recording both under his own name and with the Crickets, Holly was also the first rock star to enjoy a simultaneous group and solo career. His work as accompanist – producer on the 1958 debut recording session of future country star Waylon Jennings is only the most celebrated of several such sessions in which Holly participated. Had he lived (and aged), Holly might have eventually phased out of performing and applied himself exclusively to songwriting and record production. His move to New York City, heart of such action in pop music at the time, suggests he may have contemplated those future prospects.
But we will never know what music a more mature Buddy Holly might have made, or how. He is frozen in memory as an eternal late adolescent in photos that suggest a likable nerd extrovert brimming with energy. Holly’s future had to be made by others who may have lacked his unique sensibility but who enjoyed the benefit of his example. For him there was no such maps.
Charles Hardin Holly was born on Labor Day (September 7) in the year of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first reelection (1936), a time when thousands of Texans and others generically called Okies were escaping Westward in hopes the Depression hadn’t yet reached California. Lawrence and Ella Holley were holding fast in Lubbock, Texas, where Charles became the last of their four children. Buddy was a popular nickname for a male “baby of the family,” and it quickly replaced the formal-sounding Charles Hardin. (The misspelling of the Holley surname was a record contract goof that stuck.) A baby picture of Buddy shows the same smile, bright eyes, and look of eager anticipation that publicity photos made famous 21 years later.
Music-making was a regular pastime in the Holly household. Buddy’s older brothers, Larry and Travis, both picked guitars, and baby Buddy first displayed his crowd pleasing talent at age of five when he sang “River Of Memories” at a local talent contest and won $5. He was himself picking guitar by the sixth grade, and junior high introduced him to another aspiring musician, Bob Montgomery. Buddy and Bob teamed up to sing in the “hillbilly harmony” tradition, though they also had an ear for the R&B that drifted in on late night radio programs. Locally, station KDAV let them play on a “live” Sunday broadcast, where they might follow a bluegrass song with the Midnighters’ risqué “Work With Me Annie.” Buddy and Bob: Western Bop was inscribed on a business card and the duo became a local sensation. In a sophomore year English essay penned in the spring of 1953, Holly mused, “I have though about making a career out of western music if I am good enough but I will have to wait to see how that turns out.”
Holly had many talents, but waiting wasn’t among them. “He always did things like he wasn’t going to have much time to do them.” His brother Larry recalled in Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography of Buddy Holly by John Goldrosen and John Beecher (New York: Penguin Books, 1987). Holly’s youthful impatience was doubtless quickened by the rise of an artist inciting hysteria with a southern variant of “Western and Bop.” Elvis Presley. Holly first saw Elvis at a Lubbock club early in 1955 and was soon singing his songs on KDAV. By the fall, labels were scouting the hinterlands for another Elvis, and it was then Nashville talent scout Eddie Crandall caught Buddy and Bob opening a Lubbock show for Bill Haley and the Comets. By January, 1956, Holly received word that Decca wanted him (but not Montgomery), and he set out for Nashville with guitarist Sonny Curtis, bass player Don Guess, and a brand new Fender Stratocaster.
Holly’s three 1956 Nashville sessions yielded some pleasant rockabilly (his first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights,” captured the Sun-era Elvis spirit) but no hits. Legend has Decca A&R mogul Paul Cohen dismissing Holly as “the biggest no-talent I have ever worked with” and producer Owen Bradley calling “That’ll Be The Day” the worst song he’d ever heard. With such support from the men recording Holly, it’s little wonder his Decca sessions were a bust! Ironically, Holly would achieve stardom on a Decca subsidiary with the very song Bradley detested.
Clovis, New Mexico became an unlikely Southwestern recording center when organist Norman Petty opened a studio there in 1955. Petty’s success as a recording artist (the Norman Petty Trio had a hit in 1954 with “Mood Indigo”), contacts with New York recording and publishing companies and his studio’s reasonable rates (he charged by the session rather than by the hour) were all good reasons for Holly to seek him out. He had used Petty’s studio to cut some demos shortly after his first Nashville session in 1956 and returned there early in 1957 after his Decca contract lapsed. Petty remembered Holly as “a diamond in the rough” and, more significantly, as “a person ultra-eager to success. He had the eagerness of someone who has something on his mind who wants to do something about it.” In Petty he had gained an ally who, thanks to his New York connections, managed to get a re-recorded “That’ll Be The Day” on Brunswick (a Decca subsidiary) by late May, 1957.
It wasn’t easy. Columbia, Atlantic, and RCA all passed on the record, and Holly hadn’t been formally released from his Decca contract, so a revamped Decca title (even an unreleased one) posed legal problems. From this quagmire was born the Crickets, a group guise which kept Holly’s name off the record (as artist at least). The core band was Holly, Jerry Allison – drums, Joe B. Mauldin – bass, and Niki Sullivan – rhythm guitar and background vocals. (Mauldin didn’t play on but joined shortly after the recording of “That’ll Be The Day.”) Their initial release had a slow trajectory, so the Crickets practiced, played local shows around Lubbock, and laid by a store of masters at Petty’s studio, just in case their record ever took off. Word that it had finally done so arrived in early July, though it was not till late September that it was a number one pop hit.
During the seven months between recording the hit version of “That’ll Be The Day” and its chart-topping success, Holly had also recorded “I’m Looking For Someone To Love,” “Words Of Love,” “Not Fade Away,” Everyday,” “Peggy Sue,” “I’m Gonna Love You To,” “Maybe Baby” (though a post-stardom revamp became the hit) and “Oh Boy!” Norman Petty’s succinct take on this remarkable creative surge: “Buddy loved recording.” Obviously, though it’s rare for an artist to stockpile such an impressive “stack of wax” while waiting to hear if there would be any call for further releases. Petty shared Holly’s confidence in his material, and it may have been his relaxed enthusiasm (as opposed to the by-the-clock professionalism of Nashville studios) that encouraged Holly, still shy of his 21st birthday, to open his creative flood gates as a songwriter and also to experiment in the studio with overdubbed vocal and guitar parts. “The one thing Norman did for us,” recalled Niki Sullivan, “was just to let us ramble.” Good thing he did too, given the frenetic pace of the remaining six months of Holly’s life. He would not find another opportunity to “ramble” so freely again.
Stardom meant whirlwind road trips on package tours and the occasional stolen moment, like the Tinker Air Force Base recording of “Maybe Baby,” to cut a classic performance. Holly was releasing singles under his name on the Coral label (“Words Of Love,” his first overdubbing experiment, appeared on Brunswick) so it was not unusual for him to have two simultaneously charting singles. Holly felt justly cock about such enviable (and exceptional) exposure, though those who knew him say he had always seemed to feel that way. “Buddy,” his first manager, ‘Hipockets’ Duncan, recalled, “had a lot of grit … he just had more drive than the other youngsters…” Perhaps he was driven, as his brother Larry suggested, by the sense that “he wasn’t going to have much time.”
The final year of Holly’s life was a blur of activity (tours of England and Australia) and dramatic change. He began recording in New York City, “Rave On” being the first hit cut there in January, 1958 (it was a Crickets release). In August, Holly married Maria Elena Santiago, and his change in status reportedly strained relations with producer-manager Petty and his fellow Crickets. By November, Holly and the Crickets were no more, he and is wife were living in a Greenwich Village apartment, and the hit which was on the air during 1959’s ill-fated “Winter Dance Party” tour, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” had already been recorded in October.
Buddy Holly recorded all the songs on this collection in less than two years. Can you think of another pop music oeuvre of similar strength, variety, and impact which came together as quickly? “He always seemed to be in a hurry,” Hi Pockets Duncan once said of Holly, and haste ironically provided us this exuberant artistic legacy. He wasn’t yet 23 when he gave his final appearance at Clear Lake Iowa’s Surf Ballroom on February 2, 1959. That night Holly charted a plane so that he and the other performers on the miserable “Winter Dance Party” tour could have their road-worn clothes laundered. A few months earlier, a road-weary Holly had asked his drummer, Jerry Allison: “Why do we want to go out on the road and work all the time? What if we get killed tomorrow?” We wish he had asked himself the same question again, but then Buddy Holly, those who knew him say, was an impatient young man.
– Mark Humphrey
__________________________________________________
All MCA Record Ultimate MasterDisc 24 Karat Gold Discs are remastered from original 2-track analog masters by Glenn Meadows, Masterfonics, Nashville, Tennessee, using today’s cutting-edge technology.
(P) © 1995 MCA Records, Inc. 70 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California – U.S.A. WARNING: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. MCAD-11213
To buy this album from Amazon.com, click here: Buddy Holly - Greatest Hits
__________________________________________________
Buddy Holly
Greatest Hits
MCA Records
MCAD 11213
__________________________________________________
Ultimate MasterDisc
1. That’ll Be The Day
(Norman Petty – Buddy Holly – Jerry Allison)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February 25, 1957
Larry Welborn: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan, June Clark, Gary & Ramona Tollet: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55009
2. I’m Looking For Someone To Love
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February 25, 1957
Larry Welborn: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan, June Clark, Gary & Ramona Tollet: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55009
3. Words Of Love
(Buddy Holly)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, April 8, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Originally Coral single 61852
4. Not Fade Away
(Charles Hardin – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, May 27, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
probably Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, Niki Sullivan: background vocals
Originally Brunswick single 55035
5. Everyday
(Charles Hardin – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, May 27, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Norman Petty: celeste
Originally Coral single 61885
6. Oh Boy!
(Sunny West – Bill Tighman – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55035
7. Peggy Sue
(Jerry Allison – Norman Petty – Buddy Holly)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Coral single 61185
8. I’m Gonna Love You To
(Joe Mauldin – Niki Sullivan – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, June 29 – July 1, 1957
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Niki Sullivan: rhythm guitar
The Picks: Bill Pickering, John Pickering, Bob Lapham
Background vocals (overdubbed later); cricket (chirping)
Originally Coral 61947
9. Maybe Baby
(Norman Petty – Charles Hardin)
Recorded Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
September 27 – 28, 1957
Niki Sullivan: second lead guitar
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
The Picks (background vocals, added later in Clovis)
Originally Brunswick single 55053
10. Rave On
(Sunny West – Bill Tighman – Norman Petty)
Recorded Bell Sound Studios, New York City, New York
January 26, 1958
Produced by Norman Petty and Bob Thiele
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Norman Petty: piano
Originally Coral single 61985
11. Think It Over
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February, 1958
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Vi Petty: piano
The Roses: Bob Linville, Ray Bush, David Bingham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55072
12. Fool’s Paradise
(Sonny LeGlaire – Horace Linsley – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico, February, 1958
Joe Mauldin: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Vi Petty: piano
The Roses: Bob Linville, Ray Bush, David Bingham
Background vocals (overdubbed later)
Originally Brunswick single 55072
13. Early In The Morning
(Bobby Darin – Woody Harris)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
June 19, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Sam “The Man” Taylor: tenor sax
Panama Francis: drums
The Helen Way Singers: background vocals
remainder unknown
Originally Coral single 62006
14. It’s So Easy
(Buddy Holly – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico
June – August, 1958
Buddy Holly (vocal – rhythm guitar);
Tommy Allsup (lead guitar);
Joe Mauldin (bass);
Jerry Allison (drums);
The Roses (background vocals)
Originally Brunswick single 55094
15. Heartbeat
(Bob Montgomery – Norman Petty)
Recorded Clovis, New Mexico
June – August, 1958
Buddy Holly: vocal and rhythm guitar
Tommy Allsup: lead guitar
George Atwood: bass
Jerry Allison: drums
Originally Coral single 62051
16. True Love Ways
(Norman Petty – Buddy Holly)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Sam “The Man” Taylor: tenor sax
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62210
17. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
(Paul Anka)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62074
18. Raining In My Heart
(Boudleaux Bryant – Felice Bryant)
Recorded Pythian Temple, New York City, New York
October 20 or 21, 1958
Produced by Dick Jacobs
Buddy Holly: vocal only
Orchestra directed by Dick Jacobs
Originally Coral single 62074
Buddy Holly – vocals and lead guitar (all tracks, except as noted)
__________________________________________________
All songs produced by Norman Petty except as indicated.
__________________________________________________
Compiled and coordinated by Andy McKaie
Remastered from original masters by Glenn Meadows, Masterfonics, Nashville, TN
Art Direction: Vartan
Photo Research: Geary Chansley
Photo Courtesies:
Front & Back Covers: John Beecher;
Original Ads: Showtime Archives (Toronto) / Colin Escott;
Records – Inside Spread: Dr. Demento
Inlay Card: Jim Schafer
__________________________________________________
Sputnik I was orbiting earth when “Peggy Sue” first shook our jukeboxes. Eisenhower was President, and in 1957 rock ‘n’ roll was still deemed as an auditory viral infection that would, like a Soviet satellite, soon run its course. Buddy Holly is one of the prime reasons rock ‘n’ roll did not, like the calypso craze of the same era, wind down like some musical hula hoop. Holly surely wasn’t the sole artist to presage rock ‘n’ roll’s later development: There was Elvis with his overwhelming force field; Little Richard with his defiant primal scream; Chuck Berry with his “kid friendly” gateway to the blues. Holly may have been less flamboyantly charismatic than those men, but is gifts were arguably more varied than theirs, too.
Imagine the Beatles without Holly and his Crickets as role models. You can’t, nor can you imagine many of the other “British Invasion” sounds which were clearly recycled Hollyisms. More than that of Presley or the R&B-turned R ‘n’ R acts, Holly’s image and sound were accessible to the British. But even without the Beatles or any similar Holly inspired pop phenom in the years after his death, his work stands out from his contemporaries purely on his own merits.
Those merits were a blend of pop craftsmanship, rockabilly irreverence, and R&B showmanship refracted through Holly’s distinctly personal lens. Holly wrote (or co-wrote) much of his most memorable material, worked up innovative arrangements for his recordings, and excelled as rhythm and lead guitarist as well as vocalist. (There had been plenty of guitarslinger singers in R&B, but Holly was the first white rocker of note to perform this dual role.) Recording both under his own name and with the Crickets, Holly was also the first rock star to enjoy a simultaneous group and solo career. His work as accompanist – producer on the 1958 debut recording session of future country star Waylon Jennings is only the most celebrated of several such sessions in which Holly participated. Had he lived (and aged), Holly might have eventually phased out of performing and applied himself exclusively to songwriting and record production. His move to New York City, heart of such action in pop music at the time, suggests he may have contemplated those future prospects.
But we will never know what music a more mature Buddy Holly might have made, or how. He is frozen in memory as an eternal late adolescent in photos that suggest a likable nerd extrovert brimming with energy. Holly’s future had to be made by others who may have lacked his unique sensibility but who enjoyed the benefit of his example. For him there was no such maps.
Charles Hardin Holly was born on Labor Day (September 7) in the year of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first reelection (1936), a time when thousands of Texans and others generically called Okies were escaping Westward in hopes the Depression hadn’t yet reached California. Lawrence and Ella Holley were holding fast in Lubbock, Texas, where Charles became the last of their four children. Buddy was a popular nickname for a male “baby of the family,” and it quickly replaced the formal-sounding Charles Hardin. (The misspelling of the Holley surname was a record contract goof that stuck.) A baby picture of Buddy shows the same smile, bright eyes, and look of eager anticipation that publicity photos made famous 21 years later.
Music-making was a regular pastime in the Holly household. Buddy’s older brothers, Larry and Travis, both picked guitars, and baby Buddy first displayed his crowd pleasing talent at age of five when he sang “River Of Memories” at a local talent contest and won $5. He was himself picking guitar by the sixth grade, and junior high introduced him to another aspiring musician, Bob Montgomery. Buddy and Bob teamed up to sing in the “hillbilly harmony” tradition, though they also had an ear for the R&B that drifted in on late night radio programs. Locally, station KDAV let them play on a “live” Sunday broadcast, where they might follow a bluegrass song with the Midnighters’ risqué “Work With Me Annie.” Buddy and Bob: Western Bop was inscribed on a business card and the duo became a local sensation. In a sophomore year English essay penned in the spring of 1953, Holly mused, “I have though about making a career out of western music if I am good enough but I will have to wait to see how that turns out.”
Holly had many talents, but waiting wasn’t among them. “He always did things like he wasn’t going to have much time to do them.” His brother Larry recalled in Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography of Buddy Holly by John Goldrosen and John Beecher (New York: Penguin Books, 1987). Holly’s youthful impatience was doubtless quickened by the rise of an artist inciting hysteria with a southern variant of “Western and Bop.” Elvis Presley. Holly first saw Elvis at a Lubbock club early in 1955 and was soon singing his songs on KDAV. By the fall, labels were scouting the hinterlands for another Elvis, and it was then Nashville talent scout Eddie Crandall caught Buddy and Bob opening a Lubbock show for Bill Haley and the Comets. By January, 1956, Holly received word that Decca wanted him (but not Montgomery), and he set out for Nashville with guitarist Sonny Curtis, bass player Don Guess, and a brand new Fender Stratocaster.
Holly’s three 1956 Nashville sessions yielded some pleasant rockabilly (his first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights,” captured the Sun-era Elvis spirit) but no hits. Legend has Decca A&R mogul Paul Cohen dismissing Holly as “the biggest no-talent I have ever worked with” and producer Owen Bradley calling “That’ll Be The Day” the worst song he’d ever heard. With such support from the men recording Holly, it’s little wonder his Decca sessions were a bust! Ironically, Holly would achieve stardom on a Decca subsidiary with the very song Bradley detested.
Clovis, New Mexico became an unlikely Southwestern recording center when organist Norman Petty opened a studio there in 1955. Petty’s success as a recording artist (the Norman Petty Trio had a hit in 1954 with “Mood Indigo”), contacts with New York recording and publishing companies and his studio’s reasonable rates (he charged by the session rather than by the hour) were all good reasons for Holly to seek him out. He had used Petty’s studio to cut some demos shortly after his first Nashville session in 1956 and returned there early in 1957 after his Decca contract lapsed. Petty remembered Holly as “a diamond in the rough” and, more significantly, as “a person ultra-eager to success. He had the eagerness of someone who has something on his mind who wants to do something about it.” In Petty he had gained an ally who, thanks to his New York connections, managed to get a re-recorded “That’ll Be The Day” on Brunswick (a Decca subsidiary) by late May, 1957.
It wasn’t easy. Columbia, Atlantic, and RCA all passed on the record, and Holly hadn’t been formally released from his Decca contract, so a revamped Decca title (even an unreleased one) posed legal problems. From this quagmire was born the Crickets, a group guise which kept Holly’s name off the record (as artist at least). The core band was Holly, Jerry Allison – drums, Joe B. Mauldin – bass, and Niki Sullivan – rhythm guitar and background vocals. (Mauldin didn’t play on but joined shortly after the recording of “That’ll Be The Day.”) Their initial release had a slow trajectory, so the Crickets practiced, played local shows around Lubbock, and laid by a store of masters at Petty’s studio, just in case their record ever took off. Word that it had finally done so arrived in early July, though it was not till late September that it was a number one pop hit.
During the seven months between recording the hit version of “That’ll Be The Day” and its chart-topping success, Holly had also recorded “I’m Looking For Someone To Love,” “Words Of Love,” “Not Fade Away,” Everyday,” “Peggy Sue,” “I’m Gonna Love You To,” “Maybe Baby” (though a post-stardom revamp became the hit) and “Oh Boy!” Norman Petty’s succinct take on this remarkable creative surge: “Buddy loved recording.” Obviously, though it’s rare for an artist to stockpile such an impressive “stack of wax” while waiting to hear if there would be any call for further releases. Petty shared Holly’s confidence in his material, and it may have been his relaxed enthusiasm (as opposed to the by-the-clock professionalism of Nashville studios) that encouraged Holly, still shy of his 21st birthday, to open his creative flood gates as a songwriter and also to experiment in the studio with overdubbed vocal and guitar parts. “The one thing Norman did for us,” recalled Niki Sullivan, “was just to let us ramble.” Good thing he did too, given the frenetic pace of the remaining six months of Holly’s life. He would not find another opportunity to “ramble” so freely again.
Stardom meant whirlwind road trips on package tours and the occasional stolen moment, like the Tinker Air Force Base recording of “Maybe Baby,” to cut a classic performance. Holly was releasing singles under his name on the Coral label (“Words Of Love,” his first overdubbing experiment, appeared on Brunswick) so it was not unusual for him to have two simultaneously charting singles. Holly felt justly cock about such enviable (and exceptional) exposure, though those who knew him say he had always seemed to feel that way. “Buddy,” his first manager, ‘Hipockets’ Duncan, recalled, “had a lot of grit … he just had more drive than the other youngsters…” Perhaps he was driven, as his brother Larry suggested, by the sense that “he wasn’t going to have much time.”
The final year of Holly’s life was a blur of activity (tours of England and Australia) and dramatic change. He began recording in New York City, “Rave On” being the first hit cut there in January, 1958 (it was a Crickets release). In August, Holly married Maria Elena Santiago, and his change in status reportedly strained relations with producer-manager Petty and his fellow Crickets. By November, Holly and the Crickets were no more, he and is wife were living in a Greenwich Village apartment, and the hit which was on the air during 1959’s ill-fated “Winter Dance Party” tour, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” had already been recorded in October.
Buddy Holly recorded all the songs on this collection in less than two years. Can you think of another pop music oeuvre of similar strength, variety, and impact which came together as quickly? “He always seemed to be in a hurry,” Hi Pockets Duncan once said of Holly, and haste ironically provided us this exuberant artistic legacy. He wasn’t yet 23 when he gave his final appearance at Clear Lake Iowa’s Surf Ballroom on February 2, 1959. That night Holly charted a plane so that he and the other performers on the miserable “Winter Dance Party” tour could have their road-worn clothes laundered. A few months earlier, a road-weary Holly had asked his drummer, Jerry Allison: “Why do we want to go out on the road and work all the time? What if we get killed tomorrow?” We wish he had asked himself the same question again, but then Buddy Holly, those who knew him say, was an impatient young man.
– Mark Humphrey
__________________________________________________
All MCA Record Ultimate MasterDisc 24 Karat Gold Discs are remastered from original 2-track analog masters by Glenn Meadows, Masterfonics, Nashville, Tennessee, using today’s cutting-edge technology.
(P) © 1995 MCA Records, Inc. 70 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California – U.S.A. WARNING: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. MCAD-11213
