The Buddy Holly Collection

Holly, Buddy

album cover

The Early Rock King of Earnest

Buddy Holly is one of several key rock figures to fall victim to "biopic" syndrome: Thanks in part to The Buddy Holly Story, the 1978 movie starring Gary Busey, the legacy of the bespectacled rocker from Lubbock, Texas, has been reduced to a handful of well-known songs ("Peggy Sue"), his clean-cut image of fey innocence, and the tragic circumstances of his death. (Along with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, Holly died in the February 1959 plane crash that's often cited as "the day the music died" and was the subject of Don McLean's 1971 hit "American Pie.")

Holly's career did only last eighteen months—heck, he only released two albums during his lifetime. But the soundbite version misses key elements of his contribution. Here, in two discs that include intermittently interesting early demos, is a fuller picture of an artist whose musical ideas were embraced by scores of rockers and became standard practice.

Holly's architectural refinements to early rock are most obvious in his guitar playing. Where most of his peers were following the blues-riff outline established by Chuck Berry, Holly supported tunes like "Rave On" with intricate instrumental counterlines, étudelike scales that the Beatles later turned into high art (see songs like "Day Tripper"). Just his deployment of two guitars moving in different, often oppositional orbits was revolutionary.

Then there are the songs themselves. In 1957, rock and roll was still primarily about performance, with most of the early stars relying on others—often the skilled song-merchants of the Brill Building—for material. Not Holly. He and his band the Crickets came up with a surprising number of signature tunes, from "Peggy Sue" to "That'll Be the Day" to "I'm Looking for Someone to Love." These are full of hot-rodding energy and highly concentrated rock and roll exuberance that really did disappear the day the music died.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1990, MCA
Key Tracks: "Midnight Shift," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "That'll Be the Day," "Not Fade Away," "Maybe Baby," "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care."
Next Stop: The Beatles: Meet The Beatles!
AFTER THAT: Marshall Crenshaw: Marshall Crenshaw
Book Pages: 363–364

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