the buddy holly story
Dramaturgy by Peter Ruiz
For Marriott Theatre
Buddy Holly and The Crickets
People
(1936-1959)
Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. As the fourth and youngest child in his family, Holly was nicknamed "Buddy" by his mother, who felt that his given name was too big for her little boy. "Holly," the altered form of his last name, would later result from a misspelling in his first recording contract.
Holly learned to play piano and fiddle at an early age, while his older brothers taught him the basics of guitar. A 1949 home recording of "My Two-Timin' Woman" showcases Holly's skilled, if prepubescent, singing voice. Holly's mother and father, a tailor by trade, both proved to be very supportive of their son's burgeoning musical talents, generating song ideas and even penning a letter to the editor of Lubbock's newspaper in defense of rock 'n' roll-loving teenagers lambasted in a conservative editorial. Despite his parents' support, Holly couldn't have become a founding father of rock 'n' roll without engaging in some degree of rebellion. Once a preacher at the local Tabernacle Baptist Church asked him, "What would you do if you had $10?" The young rocker reportedly muttered, "If I had $10, I wouldn't be here." Holly had clearly set his sights on something other than growing up to join his brothers in their tiling business.
After high school, Holly formed a band and played country and western songs regularly on a Lubbock radio station. He frequently opened for more prominent national acts that toured through town. Bandmate Sonny Curtis viewed Holly's opening for Elvis Presley in 1955 as a crucial turning point for the singer. "When Elvis came along," Curtis recalls, "Buddy fell in love with Elvis and we began to change. The next day we became Elvis clones." Although the bespectacled, bow-tied youth lacked Elvis's incendiary sex appeal, Holly's conversion from country to rock 'n' roll did not go unnoticed. A record company talent scout soon caught his act at a skating rink and signed him to a contract.
In early 1956, Holly and his band began recording demos and singles in Nashville under the name Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes, but the group's lineup was later revised and dubbed The Crickets. Holly wrote and recorded his breakthrough hit, "That'll Be the Day," with The Crickets in 1957. The song's title and refrain are a reference to a line uttered by John Wayne in the 1956 film The Searchers. Between August 1957 and August 1958, Holly and the Crickets charted seven different Top 40 singles. Coincidentally, "That'll Be the Day" topped the U.S. chart exactly 500 days before Holly's untimely death.
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Joe Maudlin
(1940-2015)
Joseph Benson Mauldin, Jr. was an American bass player, songwriter, and audio engineer who was best known as the bassist for the early rock and roll group the Crickets. Mauldin initially played a double (standup) bass, then switched to a Fender Precision Bass guitar. After several years with the Crickets, he became a recording engineer at Gold Star Studios, the Los Angeles studio which became the "hit factory" for Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and other major 1960s rock performers.
Jerry Allison
(1930-2022)
Jerry Ivan Allison was an American musician, best known as the drummer for the Crickets and co-writer of their hits "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue", recorded with Buddy Holly. His only solo chart entry on the Billboard Hot 100 was "Real Wild Child", issued in 1958 under the name Ivan. Allison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
William J
“HI-Pockets” DUNCAN
1914-1981
There isn’t really a bio for him that I could find but below is an interesting anecdote and an audio record from a conversation with him about Buddy Holly recorded in 1980. It’s a little rambly but there are some gems.
(1927-1984)
One of the most important and, in some senses, controversial rock & roll producers of the late '50s, Norman Petty's name will forever be inextricably linked with that of Buddy Holly. At his Clovis, New Mexico studio, Petty produced many of Holly's greatest recordings, and received co-author credit for much of Holly's material. He also recorded on his own, and had some significant success with artists in the '60s that owed much to the Holly sound, particularly Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs. He would never approach the greatness, or sales, of the music he made with Holly, however.
Born in Clovis, a small town near the New Mexico-Texas border, Petty formed the Norman Petty Trio with his wife Vi on piano and Jack Vaughn on guitar; Norman played organ. The Norman Petty Trio made some instrumental pop records in the '50s and had a little success with "Mood Indigo," and Petty was becoming known within the industry for his songwriting, particularly with "Almost Paradise" (covered by Roger Williams). In 1955, Petty founded his own studio in Clovis to record musicians in the area, which despite its isolation from recording industry centers had a lot of country and rock talent.
Murray Deutch
(1920-2010)
A native of the Bronx, N.Y., Deutch sang with big bands as a teenager, and after serving as a machine gunner in World War II, he appeared in Irving Berlin’s “This Is the Army” with his identical twin brother, Irving.
In 1947, he became a “song plugger,” a piano player employed by music stores to promote and help sell new sheet music. He went on to stints at Jubilee Records and Southern Records.
Deutch discovered and helped sign Holly and the Crickets to a recording contract after hearing “That’ll Be the Day.” The executive also had in hand in the rock ‘n’ roll legend getting married.
In 1958, when Deutch was head of New York-based music publishing company Peer-Southern International, his secretary set Holly up with a Peer-Southern receptionist, Maria Elena Santiago, and the singer proposed after their first date. They were married two months later in Texas.
Also while at Peer-Southern, Deutch was responsible for Jane Morgan’s “Fascination,” a huge hit in 1957.
During the mid-1960s, Deutch served as head of the music division at United Artists, where he oversaw the scores for the James Bond franchise, the Beatles films and “Hair.”
In 1972, Deutch became the chairman and CEO of the New York Times Music Publishing Co. and acquired the publishing rights to “West Side Story” and “Godspell” for the company.
Maria Elena Santiago
(1932-Present)
María Elena Holly (née Santiago) is the widow of American rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly. As a receptionist at Peermusic, she met with Holly and his band the Crickets on June 19, 1958, and Holly proposed to her after five hours on their first date. Less than two months later, the couple married on August 15, 1958, in Lubbock, Texas. On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper near Clear Lake, Iowa. She suffered a miscarriage the following day and did not attend Holly's funeral.
In the following years, María Elena Holly remarried Puerto Rican government official Joe Diaz, with whom she had three children. In the 1978 film The Buddy Holly Story, she is portrayed by actress Maria Richwine. As Buddy Holly's widow, she owns the rights to his name, image, trademarks, and other intellectual property. In 2010, Santiago-Holly co-founded The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation with Peter Bradley.
As a receptionist at Peermusic, Maria Elena is believed to have met musician Buddy Holly in August 1957 when as rising stars he and the Crickets first visited Peer Southern Music in the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway to meet their publishing manager Murray Deutch, who was Maria's boss. On June 19, 1958, just before recording a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Early in the Morning" in New York's Pythian Temple, Holly asked her out on a date. Santiago had never been out on a date and told Holly he would have to ask her aunt for permission, which he received promptly. Five hours into their first date, Buddy handed a rose to Maria and asked her to marry him.
On August 15, 1958, less than two months after their first date, she married Holly at Tabernacle Baptist Church in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. They settled down in Lubbock until Buddy broke up with the Crickets, and they moved to New York. Santiago-Holly went on one tour (October 1958) with her husband and took on promotional duties.[2] Buddy Holly also formed the Maria Music publishing company with which "Stay Close to Me" was filed. Holly produced Lou Giordano's version of the song, which was issued on Brunswick 55115 on January 27, 1959.
In the early morning hours of February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly was on tour when he and fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in an airplane crash along with pilot Roger Peterson near Clear Lake, Iowa. At the time, Holly and Santiago had been married for only six months, and she learned of his death from the reports on television. As a result of psychological trauma from the incident, Santiago miscarried with her husband's child on February 4. Her husband was interred in Lubbock.
Santiago-Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. In a February 7, 1959, interview with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, she said, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."
Following the miscarriage suffered by Santiago-Holly and the circumstances in which she was informed of his death, a policy was later adopted by authorities not to disclose victims' names until after their families have been informed
RitchiE vALENS
(1941-1959)
Ritchie Valens, original name Richard Stephen Valenzuela, , American singer and songwriter and the first Latino rock and roll star. His short career ended when he died at age 17 in the 1959 plane crash in which Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper also perished.
Valens grew up in suburban Los Angeles in a family of Mexican and possibly Native American descent. While in high school, he used an electric guitar made in shop class to front a band and came to the attention of Bob Keane, owner of Del-Fi records, who produced the sessions at Gold Star Recording Studios that resulted in Valens’s hits. His first hit, “Come On, Let’s Go” (1958), was followed later that year by “Donna,” a ballad written for an ex-girlfriend, and “La Bamba,” Valens’s best-remembered recording, a rock and roll reworking of a traditional Mexican wedding song, sung in Spanish (though Valens hardly spoke the language). He performed the Little Richard-inspired “Ooh! My Head” in the film Go, Johnny, Go! (1959).
Valens left a small legacy of recordings, but his compositions (often based on only three or four chords), exciting guitar style, emotional singing, and stylistic versatility influenced generations of rock musicians. His story is told in the film La Bamba (1987). In 2001 Valens was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Big Bopper
(1930-1959)
Jiles Perry "J.P." Richardson Jr., known as The Big Bopper, was an American musician and disc jockey. His best-known compositions include "Chantilly Lace," "Running Bear" and "White Lightning", the latter of which became George Jones' first number-one hit in 1959.
Richardson worked part-time at Beaumont, Texas radio station KTRM (now KZZB). He was hired by the station full-time in 1949 and quit college. Richardson married Adrianne Joy Fryou on April 18, 1952, and their daughter Debra Joy was born in December 1953, soon after Richardson was promoted to supervisor of announcers at KTRM. In March 1955 he was drafted into the United States Army and did his basic training at Fort Ord, California. He spent the rest of his two-year service as a radar instructor at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. In March 1957, following his discharge as a corporal, Richardson returned to KTRM radio, where he held down the "Dishwashers' Serenade" shift from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.
One of the station's sponsors wanted Richardson for a new time slot, and suggested an idea for a show. Richardson had seen college students doing a dance called The Bop, and he decided to call himself "The Big Bopper". His new radio show ran from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., and he soon became the station's program director. In May 1957 he broke the record for continuous on-air broadcasting by 8 minutes. He performed for a total of five days, two hours, and eight minutes from a remote setup in the lobby of the Jefferson Theatre in downtown Beaumont, playing 1,821 records and taking showers during 5-minute newscasts. Richardson is credited for creating the first music video in 1958, and recorded an early example himself.
Richardson, who played guitar, began his musical career as a songwriter. George Jones later recorded Richardson's "White Lightning", which became Jones's first No. 1 country hit in 1959 (#73 on the pop charts). Richardson also wrote "Running Bear" for Johnny Preston, his friend from Port Arthur, Texas. The inspiration for the song came from Richardson's childhood memory of the Sabine River, where he heard stories about Indian tribes. Preston's recording was not released until August 1959, six months after Richardson's death. The song became a No. 1 hit for three weeks in January 1960. The man who launched Richardson as a recording artist was Harold "Pappy" Daily from Houston. Daily was promotion director for Mercury and Starday Records and signed Richardson to Mercury. Richardson's first single, "Beggar to a King", had a country flavor, but failed to gain any chart action.
He soon cut "Chantilly Lace" as "The Big Bopper" for Pappy Daily's D label. Mercury bought the recording and released it at the end of June 1958. It slowly began picking up airplay through July and August, and reached No. 6 on the pop charts spending 22 weeks in the national Top 40. In "Chantilly Lace", Richardson pretends to have a flirting phone conversation with his girlfriend;the record was comical in nature, with The Big Bopper presenting an exaggerated, but good-natured caricature of a ladies' man. In November 1958 he scored a second hit, a raucous novelty tune entitled "The Big Bopper's Wedding", in which Richardson pretends to be getting cold feet at the altar. Both "Chantilly Lace" and "Big Bopper's Wedding" were receiving top 40 radio airplay through January 1959.
Places
Lubbock, tEXAS
Lubbock is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northwestern part of the state,(the region is the Great Plains) a region known historically and geographically as the Llano Estacado, and ecologically is part of the southern end of the High Plains, lying at the economic center of the Lubbock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 325,245 in 2021.
Lubbock's nickname, "Hub City," derives from it being the economic, educational, and health-care hub of the multicounty region, north of the Permian Basin and south of the Texas Panhandle, commonly called the South Plains. The area is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world and is heavily dependent on water from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation.
Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, the sixth-largest college by enrollment in the state.
Apollo Theater, theatre established in 1913 at 253 West 125th Street in the Harlem district of New York City. It has been a significant venue for African American popular music.
In addition to introducing a vast number of rising stars, the Apollo quickly became a vital stop for any Black entertainer, and virtually every major African American musical act performed there at least once—as did several white acts (notably Buddy Holly), who often were booked because they were assumed to be Black. The management maintained a policy of alternating live stage shows with B movies (allegedly to clear the house). The Apollo was the pinnacle of the “chitlin circuit” of venues—including the Regal Theater in Chicago and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C.—that catered to African American audiences. As a show of respect for its legacy, the building was left untouched during the riots of the 1960s. In 1977 the shows were discontinued, and the theatre was operated (unsuccessfully) as a movie theatre. A year later the building was closed. Purchased by investors in 1981, the Apollo received landmark status in 1983, was renovated, and was reopened to the public in 1985.
Buddy Holly and The crickets at the apollo
August 16th, 1957
Buddy Holly and The Crickets, still being billed as The Crickets, began a 6 night engagement at the Apollo. They were the first White Rock act to play there. The Theatre and the crowd thought that an R&B band by the name The Crickets were booked. It’s said that the band didn’t win over the crowd fully until the 3rd night of performance.
wHO tHEY tHOUGHT THEY WERE gETTING
There were two Crickets, of course. One was Buddy Holly's group from Lubbock, TX, and there was also a vocal group of Crickets from the Bronx, NY. Though these Crickets were never trendsetters, they did manage to capture an accomplished R&B sound led by the mellow vocal stylings of Grover (Dean) Barlow. The other original members were Harold Johnson, Gene Stapleton, Leon Carter, and Rodney Jackson.
The Crickets were signed to MGM Records in January 1953 by pioneering record producer Joe Davis, who had previously operated his own recording company, Beacon Records, and his own management company, from the early '40s until 1948. As MGM was trying to break into the R&B market at the time, Davis produced their first single: "Milk and Gin" b/w "You're Mine" (MGM 11428). The ballad A-side was well received in the East, and in less than three months "You're Mine" sold more than 100,000 copies in the Northeast, a heady figure for an R&B single in the early '50s. A second single failed to score enough airplay or sales for the Crickets, and Davis left MGM shortly thereafter to start another record company, Jay-Dee Records. He brought to his label a few of the artists he had worked with before, including the Blenders, Paula Watson, and the Crickets.
In July 1953 the Crickets made their debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater on a bill with Ruth Brown and Sonny Stitt's jazz combo. They saw the release of two additional singles for the Jay-Dee label, neither of which did much to propel the act further. By this time, under Davis' watchful eye, the group began making their first personnel changes in the lineup. Lead singer Barlow had quite a few new faces to accompany him by year's end: Robert Bynum, William Lindsey, and Joseph Diaz replaced original members Johnson, Stapleton, Carter, and Jackson. In January 1954 the Crickets recorded a cover of "Changing Partners," a hit for Patti Page and Bing Crosby, among others, but once again, sales and airplay eluded the quartet. Three more Crickets efforts for Jay-Dee came and went, but Davis believed that they still had a hit in them.
In November 1954 Davis reactivated his Beacon label again and moved the Crickets over to the roster of the "new" label, releasing their ballad "Be Faithful" (Beacon 104) with a song by the Deep River Boys on the B-side. (In addition to acts like the Crickets and the Deep River Boys, Davis also released early efforts by the Red Caps, Southernaires, Blenders, the Sparrows, and Lillian Leach & the Mellows.) For "Be Faithful," the single was credited as "Dean Barlow & the Crickets." The name change (Davis did not like the name Grover, apparently, and so he began using the name Dean for the group's lead singer) brought the Crickets a bit of luck. "Be Faithful" got extensive airplay on New York radio -- Alan Freed and Doctor Jive both spun the 45 constantly -- and the record became the biggest-selling record in the entire existence of both the Crickets and Dean Barlow, who by now was being groomed as a solo performer.
Barlow's first solo effort for Jay-Dee under his own name (which may have initially added to the confusion whether he was the featured act, or the band the Crickets were) was "I'll String Along with You," a remake from the '30s that received decent sales and airplay. Two follow-up singles weren't nearly as successful, however, and Barlow continued on as a solo artist, recording occasionally with other acts, including the Bachelors ("Dolores" b/w "I Want to Know About Love," Earl 101; "Baby" b/w "Tell Me Now," Earl 102) and the Montereys ("Dearest One" b/w "Through the Years," Onyx 513).
WHO THEY GOT
Winter Dance Party tour with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper
In January of 1959 Buddy Holly, Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and Frankie Sardo set out on a twenty-four day tour of the mid-western United States. The tour for Holly, Richardson and Valens would end in disaster on February 3, 1959. All three would die in their charter plane crash on the way to the tour's next stop. The Winter Dance Party is characterized "As the Day the Music Died" in Don McLean's song "American Pie."
The tour was to kickoff on on January 23, 1959 at George Devine's Ballroom in Milwaukee, zig-zag throughout the upper Midwest and end February 15 at the Illinois State Armory in Springfield, Illinois
The tour was a disaster from the start, playing small dates in frozen towns, with all the musicians crammed into a drafty bus that would breakdown only to be replaced by a series of busses that were no better. One of which its heating system would breakdown leaving its occupants in weather that ranged from twenty degrees to thirty-six below without heat.
By February 1, Carl Bunch Holly's drummer had left with frost bitten feet and a mood of rebellion was overtaking the tour. The tour was scheduled to play two shows that day and and then to go to Clear Lake, Iowa for the next evening's performance. By the time they got there, everyone was in a bad mood. Holly told his band members, guitarist Tommy Allsup and bassist Waylon Jennings, that after the show he was going to lease a plane from Dwyer's Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa to fly them to Fargo, North Dakota, ahead of everyone. The rest of the party would have picked him up in Moorhead, saving him the journey in the bus and leaving him time to get some rest.
On Monday, February 2, the tour arrived in Clear Lake, Iowa. Not a scheduled stop, tour promoters, hoped to fill an open date, called the manager of the local Surf Ballroom, Carroll Anderson and offered him the show. He accepted, and they set the show for that night. By the time Holly arrived at the venue that evening, he was frustrated with the ongoing problems with the bus. The next scheduled location was Moorhead, Minnesota.
Holly decided to charter a plane to take his band and him to Fargo, North Dakota. The rest of the party would have picked him up in Moorhead, saving him the journey in the bus and leaving him time to get some rest. Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson called Jerry Dwyer, owner of the Dwyer Flying Service, a company in Mason City, Iowa, to charter the plane to fly to Hector Airport in Fargo, the closest one to Moorhead. Flight arrangements were made with Roger Peterson, a 21-year-old local pilot. The weather was bad with flying advisories out, ones that any instrument trained pilot could handle, but the Peterson wasn't licensed for instrument flying, plus he had recently failed his instrument test’
Background on the songs
Ready Teddy
"Ready Teddy" is a song written by John Marascalco and Robert Blackwell, and first made popular by Little Richard in 1956.[1] Little Richard sang and played piano on the recording, backed by a band consisting of Lee Allen (tenor saxophone), Alvin "Red" Tyler (baritone sax), Edgar Blanchard (guitar), Frank Fields (bass), and Earl Palmer (drums).[2]
It has since been covered by Buddy Holly, The Tornados, Elvis Presley, Tony Sheridan and others making it something of a rock and roll standard. The composition, an uptempo rock and roll song, received its largest ever recognition on the evening of September 9, 1956, as Presley sang it in front of some 60 million television viewers during his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS, a broadcast which received a Trendex percentage share of 82.6, the largest ever obtained in the history of U.S. television. It was later used in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) as a version by Italian rocker Adriano Celentano.
That’ll Be The Day
Holly had been kicking around his home town in Lubbock, Texas trying to write a hit song for his small rockabilly band since he had attended an Elvis Presley gig at his High School some time in 1955. His band in those days consisted of him on lead vocals and guitar, Jerry Allison on the drums and Joe B. Maudlin on upright bass. He and Jerry decided to get together and go see The Searchers, a Western movie starring John Wayne. In the movie, Wayne keeps replying, "That'll be the day," every time another character in the film predicts or proclaims something will happen when he felt it was not likely to happen. The phrase stuck in Jerry's mind, and when they were hanging out at Jerry's house one night, Buddy looked at Jerry and said that it sure would be nice if they could record a hit song. Jerry replied with, "That'll be the day," imitating John Wayne in the film.
Holly and his band The Three Tunes recorded this in Nashville in 1956, but Decca records didn't like the result and refused to release it. A year later, Holly re-recorded it with The Crickets in a studio in Clovis, New Mexico owned by his new producer, Norman Petty. Backup vocalists were brought in and the key was lowered to fit Holly's voice a little better. This version became a huge hit and made Holly a star that summer.
Norman Petty took a writing credit on this because he produced it. This meant Holly and Allison had to share royalties with him. This was Holly's first hit, but it was credited to The Crickets, Holly's band. They worked with two record labels, with one releasing Holly's songs as The Crickets and the other as Buddy Holly. Both labels were subsidiaries of Decca Records.
This inspired the British 1973 movie of the same name, about a young man with dreams of becoming a rock star.
Rock Around Ollie Vee
This song was first recorded at the Bradley Film and Recording Studios, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville, Tennessee. It was written by Sonny Curtis who later joined the Crickets after Buddy died. It was the first song of his ever recorded.
The song was the B side to That’ll Be The Day. It was credited to Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes…that was the group that recorded with Buddy Holly in Nashville on July 22, 1956, for Decca Records. The group name used was Buddy and the Two Tones (Buddy Holly with Sonny Curtis, guitar and Don Guess, bass). The recordings were supported by session musicians.
Buddy would record it later on with the Crickets.
Everyday
"Everyday" is a song written by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty, recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets on May 29, 1957, and released on September 20, 1957, as the B-side of "Peggy Sue", which went to three on the Billboard Top 100 chart in 1957. The song is ranked number 238 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
On the original single the Crickets are not mentioned, but it is known that Holly plays acoustic guitar; drummer Jerry Allison slaps his knees for percussion; Joe B. Mauldin plays a standup acoustic bass; A celesta, which is a keyboard instrument with a glockenspiel-like tone, is also used in the recording.
Not Fade Away
Holly and the Crickets recorded the song in Clovis, New Mexico, on May 27, 1957, the same day the song "Everyday" was recorded.The rhythmic pattern of "Not Fade Away" is a variant of the Bo Diddley beat, with the second stress occurring on the second rather than third beat of the first measure, which was an update of the "hambone" rhythm, or patted juba from West Africa. Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets, pounded out the beat on a cardboard box. Allison, Holly's best friend, wrote some of the lyrics, though his name never appeared in the songwriting credits. Joe Mauldin played the double bass on this recording. It is likely that the backing vocalists were Holly, Allison, and Niki Sullivan, but this is not known for certain
Peggy Sue
The song was originally entitled "Cindy Lou", after Holly's niece, the daughter of his sister Pat Holley Kaiter. The title was later changed to "Peggy Sue" in reference to Peggy Sue Gerron (1940–2018), the girlfriend (and future wife) of Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets, after the couple had temporarily broken up.
In her memoir, “Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?”, Gerron stated that she first heard the song at a live performance at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in 1957, and that she was "so embarrassed, I could have died."
Appropriately, Allison had a prominent role in the production of the song, playing paradiddles on the drums throughout the song, the drums' sound rhythmically fading in and out as a result of real-time engineering techniques by the producer, Norman Petty. Joe B. Mauldin (string bass) also played on the recording.
Initially, only Allison and Petty were listed as the song's authors. At Allison's insistence, Holly was credited as a co-writer after his death.
Words of Love
Holly recorded the song on April 8, 1957. Holly harmonized with himself, by combining tape recordings of each part. The song was not a notable hit for Holly, although it is regarded as one of his important recordings and is available in most standard Holly collections.
Oh, Boy!
The song was originally recorded as a demo by Sonny West as "All My Love (Oh Boy!)" at Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico in early 1957. Petty presented West's demo to Buddy Holly with the intention of Holly recording the song. On the BBC's Classic Albums series in 2019, West said, "I had a decision to make whether to say I want to do it myself and I said 'No, I want Buddy to do it', it can't hurt anything and if it didn't work I could go back and do it myself someday." It was subsequently recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets between June 29 and July 1, 1957, at Norman Petty Studios with Holly singing lead vocals and The Picks providing backing vocals. The song is in an A-A-B-A format with a 12-bar blues verse and an 8-bar bridge. (Holly also covered another West song, "Rave On".)
West has stated that Holly made a small change to the original lyrics of the song. He told the BBC's Classic Albums series in 2019, "I said 'All my love, all my kissing, you're gonna see what you've been missing'. And with Buddy's verse, 'All my love, all my kissing, you don't know what you've been missing'. I have no idea, maybe it has more punch that way."
Think it Over
Think It Over" is a rock-and-roll song written by Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, and Norman Petty in 1958, originally recorded by the Crickets. Vi Petty, Norman Petty's wife, played piano on this recording.
True Love Ways
The song was recorded at Holly's last recording session before his death on February 3, 1959. The session took place at the Pythian Temple on October 21, 1958 and also included the recordings of "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", "Raining in My Heart", and "Moondreams".
In the extended version of the song, in the first ten seconds Holly can be heard preparing to sing. The audio starts with audio saying "Yeah, we're rolling." A piano player and a tenor saxophone player play some notes, and Holly mutters, "Okay," and clears his throat. The producer yells, "Quiet, boys!" to everyone else in the room, and at the end of the talkback, the producer says, "Pitch, Ernie", to signal the piano player to give Holly his starting note, a B-flat.
Holly biographer Bill Griggs points out that the melody borrows heavily from the gospel song "I'll Be All Right," a favorite of Holly's, and one that would be played at his funeral in 1959. According to Griggs, the framework of the melody was written by Buddy, with the remainder, and lyrics, added by Petty.
Holly's widow, Maria Elena Holly, claimed that the song was written for her as a wedding gift. On April 29, 2011, Mrs. Holly unveiled the never-before-seen "True Love Ways" photo of their wedding kiss, now displayed at P.J. Clarke's above Table 53, the table where they became engaged while on their first date, on June 20, 1958.
A listing of producer Norman Petty's productions claims that Vi Petty, Norman's wife, recorded the first version of this song on June 4, 1958—two weeks prior to Buddy's engagement with Maria. However, only white label promotional copies were pressed (in July).
Maybe Baby
"Maybe Baby", originally recorded by Holly and the Crickets in 1957, reached number 17 on the US charts and number 4 on the UK chart; Holly toured in the UK that year (see Buddy Holly discography). The single also reached number 8 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 9 on the Canadian charts. The rather simple lyrics are augmented by a twangy percussive accompaniment, characteristic of rockabilly, which is especially effective in the 8-bar instrumental introduction and the short conclusion.
"Maybe Baby" was recorded at Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, Oklahoma on September 29, 1957, while Buddy Holly and The Crickets were on a tour (and played that same night, at Oklahoma City Municipal Auditorium with the Show Of Stars '57). Jerry Allison from The Crickets personally remembers that the song, along with three others, was recorded at Tinker Air Force Base. Graham Pugh, a Buddy Holly researcher from the Oklahoma City area, also has seen airplane tickets documenting the fact that Buddy Holly and The Crickets landed at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City on September 28, 1957.
Peggy Sue Got Married
Buddy Holly recorded the vocal, accompanying himself on guitar, on December 8, 1958, in apartment 4H of "The Brevoort" on New York City's Fifth Avenue. Studio musicians recorded backup vocals and instrumentals on June 30, 1959, at Coral Records' Studio A in New York. An alternate version of the song, with new instrumentals but without backup singers, was recorded in 1964.
The studio recording sessions and overdubs for "Peggy Sue Got Married" were similar to those for the posthumous track "Crying, Waiting, Hoping". Buddy Holly's original, undubbed home recording was used as theme music in the film Peggy Sue Got Married.
Heartbeat
"Heartbeat" was the second to last of Holly's singles to be released during his lifetime. It was a minor hit in the United States, reaching number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Raining in my Heart
"Raining in My Heart" is a song recorded by Buddy Holly on October 21, 1958 at the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street in New York City, with the orchestral backing by Dick Jacobs. The music and lyrics are written by the songwriting team of Felice Bryant and Boudleaux Bryant. It was released as a single on Coral Records in 1959, peaking at number 88 on the Billboard chart as the B-side of "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".This recording was included on Buddy Holly's first "greatest hits" compilation album, The Buddy Holly Story, that was released in March 1959.
It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
"It Doesn't Matter Anymore" is a pop ballad written by Paul Anka and recorded by Buddy Holly in 1958. The song was issued in January 1959, less than a month before Holly's death. "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" reached number 13 as a posthumous hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1959, shortly after Holly was killed in a plane crash on February 3, 1959. The single was a two-sided hit, backed with "Raining in My Heart". "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" was Holly's last US Top 20 hit and featured the orchestral backing of Dick Jacobs. It was also successful in the United Kingdom, where it became the country's first posthumous number 1 hit.
The song was recorded in mid-October 1958 in New York City. Paul Anka wrote it specifically for Holly. He donated his royalties from the song to Holly's wife. He said: "'It Doesn't Matter Anymore' has a tragic irony about it now, but at least it will help look after Buddy Holly's family. I'm giving my composer's royalty to his widow - it's the least I can do."
Rave On
"Rave On", also written "Rave On!", is a song written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty in 1958. It was first recorded by West for Atlantic Records, which released his version in February 1958. Buddy Holly recorded the song later the same year, and his version became a hit, one of six of his recordings that charted in 1958. Holly is instantly recognizable as the artist: the record begins with a drawn-out "Well…" as stylized by Holly's distinctive hiccup ("A-weh-uh-heh-uh-ell…").
La Bamba
"La Bamba" is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, also known as "La Bomba"
"La Bamba" is a classic example of the son jarocho musical style, which originated in the Mexican state of Veracruz, and combines Spanish, indigenous, and African musical elements. The song is typically played on one or two arpa jarochas (harps) along with guitar relatives the jarana jarocha and the requinto jarocho. Lyrics to the song vary greatly, as performers often improvise verses while performing. However, versions such as those by musical groups Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan and Los Pregoneros del Puerto have survived because of the artists' popularity. The traditional aspect of "La Bamba" lies in the tune, which remains almost the same through most versions. The name of the dance referenced within the song, which has no direct English translation, is presumably connected with the Spanish verb "bambolear", meaning "to sway", "to shake" or "to wobble". In one traditional version of this dance performed at weddings and ballet folklórico shows, couples utilize intricate footwork to create a bow signifying their union.
Chantilly Lace
Originally cut for Pappy Daily's D label, the recording was purchased by Mercury Records and reissued in the summer of 1958, just over six months after Chuck Berry released "Sweet Little Sixteen", which uses the same chord progression. The song was originally released as the flip side to "The Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor", which parodied "The Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley and "Witch Doctor" by David Seville. The was J.P. Richardson's first release under the moniker The Big Bopper. However, DJs and the public preferred the flip side "Chantilly Lace", and it was this song that became a hit.
The song reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 22 weeks on the national Top 40. It was the third most played song of 1958 On the Cash Box chart, "Chantilly Lace" reached No. 4.