Buddy Holly biography, Buddy Holly discography
For the Weezer song, see Buddy Holly (song).The change of spelling of "Holley" to "Holly" came about because of an error in a contract he was asked to sign, listing him as Buddy Holly.Greatest Artists of All Time.Biography
2 Death
3 Posthumous record releases
4 Style
5 Influence
6 Film and musical depictions
7 Tributes
7.Buddy Holly in popular culture
9 Discography
10 References
10.The Holleys were a musical family and as a young boy Holley learned to play the violin (his brothers oiled the strings so much that no one could hear him play), piano, guitar and fiddle.In the fall of 1949, he met Bob Montgomery in Hutchinson Junior High School.They shared a common interest in music and soon teamed up as the duo "Buddy and Bob."Initially influenced by bluegrass music, they sang harmony duets at local clubs and high school talent shows.His musical interests grew throughout high school while singing in the Lubbock High School Choir.Holly turned to rock music after seeing Elvis Presley sing live in Lubbock in early 1955.His Comets at a local rock show organized by Eddie Crandall, who was also the manager for Marty Robbins.As a result of this performance, Holly was offered a contract with Decca Records to work alone, which he accepted."The Crickets": Buddy Holly, Joe B.Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed Buddy Holly and The Crickets.This put Holly in the unusual position of having two record contracts at the same time."Starlight", recorded in April, 1957, featuring Jack Huddle.Crickets were accidentally booked at New York's Apollo Theater (though, unlike the immediate response depicted in the 1978 movie The Buddy Holly Story, it actually took several performances for his talents to be appreciated).After the release of several highly successful songs, Holly and the Crickets toured the United Kingdom in 1958.He proposed to her on their very first date.As a result, in 1959, the group split.Death
Holly began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Ritchie Valens and J.One night after a performance in Green Bay, Wisconsin, at the Riverside Ballroom, the three headliners gave their final show, at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959.Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat.The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:55 A.The pilot's body remained in the wreckage.All had suffered severe and multiple injuries.Don McLean referred to it as "the Day the Music Died."Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after.Holly's funeral services were held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, and his body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city.Posthumous record releases
Buddy Holly's music did not die with him.Buddy Holly albums and singles for 10 years after his death.The Hansen session, in which Holly's last six original compositions were overdubbed, was issued on the 1960 Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol.Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a glottal stop, to emphasize certain words in any given song, especially the rockers.The Beatles did a cover version of "Words of Love" that was an almost perfect reproduction of Holly's version.Dylan referred to this in his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for his 1997 Time out of Mind winning Album of the Year:
"And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him...Various rock and roll histories have asserted that the singing group The Hollies were named in homage to Buddy Holly.However, the site also admits to a degree of uncertainty about that story.Film and musical depictions
The dramatic arc of Holly's life story inspired a Hollywood biographical film, The Buddy Holly Story.The movie was widely criticized by the rock community for its inaccuracies.This led Paul McCartney to produce and host his own tribute to Holly, titled The Real Buddy Holly Story.In 1987 Marshall Crenshaw portrayed Buddy Holly in the movie La Bamba.He is featured performing at the Surf Ballroom and boarding the doomed airplane with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.Crenshaw's version of Crying, Waiting, Hoping is featured on the La Bamba original motion picture soundtrack.There were also successful Broadway and West End musicals documenting his career.The Buddy Holly Story ran in the West End for 13 years.Songs
Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie" is inspired, at least in part, by the "The Day the Music Died" (the day of the plane crash).Eddie Cochran, good friend and fellow rock 'n' roll pioneer was so distraught by the deaths of Holly, Valens and The Big Bopper that he recorded the song "Three Stars" as a tribute.Ironically, the song was not released until after Cochran's own premature death."If We Shall Make Love, We Shall Make Love (listening) to Buddy Holly").The Smithereens' song "Maria Elena" is a Buddy Holly tribute as sung to his widow.Phil Ochs famously sang a long tribute to Buddy Holly on the infamous Gunfight at Carnegie Hall album.Mike Berry released a 1961 single called "Tribute to Buddy Holly".It was written by Geoff Goddard and produced by Joe Meek, who was a great Buddy Holly fan.In the USA, it was released on Coral, Buddy Holly's label."Buddy Hollys Brille" (Buddy Holly's glasses), in which they discussed in a humorous way the question of what happened to Buddy Holly's glasses after his death.Downtown Lubbock also features Buddy Holly Avenue and the Buddy Holly Center, which is a museum dedicated to Texas art and music.He also created a similar stainless steel monument to the three musicians at the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin.That memorial was unveiled on July 17, 2003.The 'Winter Dance Party Tour' is a tribute tour to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and early rock and roll.It gets its name from the tour that ended the lives of Holly, Valens, and Richardson.This reproduction of the tour ends every year at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.Buddy Holly, who says he is on Ganymede.He became the Disc's greatest musician under the name Buddy in the Band with Rocks In, before dying in a cart crash (a reference to Buddy Holly as Imp's name translates as "bud of the holly")."Oil", an episode of The Young Ones features Mike (Christopher Ryan) discovering Buddy Holly, alive and well and tangled in parachutes, in the attic of a house in London.Buddy Holly is a main character in an episode of Quantum Leap, working as a veterinarian's assistant.In a Simpsons episode, "Colonel Homer", the manager of the recording studio fondly recalled how "Buddy Holly stood on this spot in 1958 and said, 'There is no way in hell, I am gonna record in this dump.In a later episode, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper appear on an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon.In yet another episode, Lisa discovers Sideshow Bob had won election as mayor through votes by her two dead cats, Snowball I and Snowball II, as well as Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (whose tombstone reads "good bye, baaaaby!!"In the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, a scene depicts John Travolta and Uma Thurman's characters dining at a fictional 1950's themed restaurant named Jack Rabbit Slims.The waiter in the movie is dressed as Buddy Holly.He is played by Steve Buscemi.In an episode of the MTV series, Clone High, Holly "guest stars", along with Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and several other musicians who died in plane crashes.He appears in the 2007 movie Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, portrayed by Frankie Muniz."Buddy Holly" by Bruce Eder for Allmusic.The Immortals: The First Fifty.Bob Dylan 980225 at the Grammy Awards.The Buddy Holly Story" (musical)
Buddy Holly Tribute at Digitaldreamdoor.International Buddy Site
Find A Grave Entry
Day the Music Died; Info on crash, Coroner's Report etc.Buddy Holly discography at MusicBrainz
The Buddy Holly Recordings by Terry R.Shaw
Entry at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website
Buddy Holly at Rollingstone
Bob Montgomery 'Buddy and Bob' Biography
Walk in Lubbock Texas from Statue to Center
Daily Telegraph article by Julian Lloyd Webber
Buddy Holly Infrequent Collectors Disks of 78 Turns!"Buddy Holly" is a song by the rock group Weezer, written by Rivers Cuomo.The single was released on what would have been Buddy Holly's 58th birthday, had he not been killed in a plane crash along with fellow rock pioneers Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper on February 3, 1959.The lyrics reference the song's 1950s namesake and actress Mary Tyler Moore.The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.Music video
2 Song development
3 Tracklist
3.The music video for "Buddy Holly" was directed by Spike Jonze.In diner from the popular '70s television show, Happy Days.Happy Days cast member Al Molinaro made a cameo appearance in the video.Al plugs his hometown, Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the introduction.The video also features brief cameos by some members of the band That Dog as dancers at Arnold's.The video was met with great popularity and heavy rotation on MTV.The innovative video scored four awards at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, including prizes for Breakthrough Video and Best Alternative Video.In the book 'River's Edge', Ocasek is quoted as saying, "I remember at one point he was hesitant to do 'Buddy Holly' and I was like, 'Rivers, we can talk about it.Do it anyway, and if you don't like it when it's done, we won't use it.Cuomo said that he felt the song was "too cheesy" and didn't know if the song represented the sound he was going for with the band's music.An early demo of "Buddy Holly" recorded by Cuomo in 1993 has a much different feel, as the song is played at a much slower tempo than the version that appears on the album.This version appeared on Alone.VH1 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s in December of 2007.Buddy Holly
Modern Rock Tracks (US)
No.Buddy Holly
Mainstream Rock Tracks (US)
No.Buddy Holly
UK Singles Chart
No.Buddy Holly
Hot 100 (US)
No.List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.British Indie artist Dev 'Lightspeed Champion' Hynes covered the song during his 2008 tour.Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine covered this as a Lounge style on his 2002 album "Tuxicity".Scottish band Biffy Clyro covered this song for a Kerrang!Mary Tyler Moore is perhaps referenced because Sonny Curtis (of Buddy Holly's band The Crickets) wrote and performed the theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show.In October 2007, Much More Music placed "Buddy Holly" as number 3 of the Top 40 Most Memorable Music Videos on "Listed".Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story.This page was last modified 23:59, 3 February 2008.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Your complete Buddy Holly connection
since 1997!Buddy Holly
Induction Year: 1986
Induction Category: Performer
"Buddy Holly played rock and roll for only two short years, but the wealth of material he recorded in that time made a major and lasting impact on popular music.In his final months, he even began experimenting with orchestration.He learned to play guitar, piano and fiddle at an early age.After being noticed by a talent scout, Holly was signed to Decca in early 1956, recording demos and singles for the label in Nashville under the name Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes.Back home, Holly opened a show at the Lubbock Youth Center for Elvis Presley, an event that hastened his conversion from country and western to rock and roll.The effortless, upbeat rocker won them a contract with the Coral and Brunswick labels.Releases alternated on Coral and Brunswick, with those on the former label credited to Buddy Holly and the latter to the Crickets.Between August 1957 and August 1958, Holly and the Crickets charted seven Top Forty singles.Midwest in the winter of 1959.Following a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a private plane to the next stop on the tour, Moorhead, Minnesota.Buddy Holly, is born in Lubbock, Texas.September 1, 1953: Best friends Buddy (Holly) and Bob (Montgomery) audition for radio station KDAV in Lubbock.Sunday afternoons, during which they perform country and bluegrass standards.October 14, 1955: The trio of Buddy Holly, Bob Montgomery and Larry Welborn opens for Bill Haley and the Comets in Lubbock.Holly impresses a Nashville talent scout, leading to his eventual signing with Decca Records.January 26, 1956: Signed to Decca Records, Buddy Holly heads to Nashville for his first official recording session."Blue Days, Black Nights") and a classic cover ("Midnight Shift").Buddy Holly performs both songs on The Ed Sullivan Show in December.August 15, 1958: Buddy Holly marries Maria Elena Santiago back home in Lubbock.Buddy Holly and the Crickets share the bill with Bobby Darin, Dion and the Belmonts, Clyde McPhatter, and the Coasters.Buddy Holly before his death.Buddy Holly, who has parted ways with the Crickets, is the headliner.February 3, 1959: After performing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly charters a plane to fly him to Fargo, North Dakota.The Big Bopper) and pilot Roger Peterson.Paul Anka and recorded by Buddy Holly at his last studio session, becomes a posthumous hit.July 1, 1976: Lifelong Buddy Holly fan Paul McCartney purchases rights to the entire Holly song catalog.May 18, 1978: The Buddy Holly Story, a popular film biography starring Gary Busey in the title role, is released.February 3, 1979: A commemorative concert is held at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, exactly 20 years after the final show played by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.January 23, 1986: Buddy Holly is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the first induction dinner, held in New York City.Chuck Berry), Buddy Holly was probably the first rock and roll artist to concern
himself with virtually every aspect of his music including arranging and record
production.The Holly's had a rich musical tradition.Older brothers, Larry and Travis, taught themselves how to play the guitar.Their sister
Pat sang duets with her mother in the evening at the living room piano.In his
youth, Holly had little direct contact with blacks or their music, but like so many other
young musicians, he was attracted to the rhythm and blues heard on distant radio stations.Although his formal music education was
short, Buddy was familiar with many kinds of music.Montgomery's taste in music ran to country
music, especially Hank Williams, and Montgomery would be a major influence over Buddy's
choice of music.They soon added
Larry Welborn to play bass.Local radio stations also
gave impetus to Buddy and Bob's career.Buddy and Bob were frequent guests.Although Montgomery was the principal composer during their partnership,
Buddy also began to write.Buddy his first real break.One of these performances played a crucial role in the advancement of
Buddy's career.Buddy
Holly Memorabilia
That October the group added Jerry Allison on the drums.Lubbock's own Buddy, Bob, and
Larry.Crandall, Marty Robbins' manager, booked the show.The show's promoter Eddie Crandall was impressed by Buddy's performance and told Holly he
would attempt to get them a recording contract.Holly returned to Lubbock where he played locally with stars that came through the
area.The first
session was in Nashville on January 26, 1956 and held at Owen Bradley's recording studio.Holly's voice, his guitar and his own group of musicians.The Crickets
(Top clockwise: Buddy Holly, Niki Sullivan, Jerry Allison and Joe B.Norman Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico.But Buddy Holly wanted to record his own
songs with his own group, now called the Crickets.Southern gave the demo to Bob
Thiele at Brunswick Records, a subsidiary of Decca.Brunswick decided to use it as a master.Holly's name in the credits.The Crickets, was released in June, 1957.Cotton Club in Lubbock, TX.The Center collects, preserves and presents artifacts, materials, artworks, and exhibitions consistent with professional museum standards.The vision of the Buddy Holly Center is to discover art through music by celebrating legacy, culture and community.Exhibitions and programs reflect the diverse cultural characteristics of the region and encourage interaction between artists and the community.The Center collects, preserves and interprets artifacts relevant to Lubbock's most famous native son, Buddy Holly, as well as to other performing artists and musicians of West Texas.Down the River of Memories.At age eleven Buddy took piano lessons, but quit
after nine months.He started studying steel guitar, but eventually taught himself to play
on acoustic guitar.In the autumn of 1953, the duo added bass player
Larry Welborn and started playing weekly on Lubbock radio station KDAV.He stayed focused on his dream,
however, of making his living as a musician.In 1954 and 1955 the band made some demo records in
Wichita Falls, but in 1956 Decca offered only Buddy a contract.Decca tried to turn him
into a country artist.Two unsuccessful singles later, the label and Buddy parted ways.Holly returned to Lubbock still determined to make
it big in the music business.In February 1957 Holly, Welborn, who was later replaced by
Joe B.Norman Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico, is where the band
adopted the name the Crickets and formed its unique style.The Crickets soon signed a contract with Brunswick
Records and Buddy signed a solo contract with Brunswick's Coral label.It made Holly virtually an overnight success.His
popularity quickly rivaled that of Elvis Presley.In 1957, they traveled with black artists and performed at
predominantly black theaters like the Apollo in New York and the Howard in Washington,
D.In the summer of 1958 Holly met Maria Elena
Santiago, a receptionist at a music company.In October, he decided to move to New York City.Allison and Mauldin wanted to stay with
Norman Petty in Clovis.But in January
1959, Holly was accompanied on a tour by Allsup, bassist Waylon Jennings, an old Lubbock
friend who became a country music star, and drummer Charlie Bunch.Promoters falsely
billed them as the Crickets.After a February 2 show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly
and his band, along with Ritchie Valens, and J.Moorhead, Minnesota, but Holly chartered a plane to
fly him and his band to Fargo, North Dakota, near Moorhead.Mason City, ten miles east of Clear Lake, at
around 1:50 AM on February 3, 1959.Shortly following
Holly's funeral in Lubbock, his pregnant widow, Maria, had a miscarriage.January 5, hit the Top
100 on the day of the crash.Holly's music was a major influence for such rock
music legends as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Linda
Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, and Elvis Costello.Bad news on the doorstep.This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die.The movie The Buddy Holly Story was released
in 1978.This movie version of his life and contribution to music started a major revival
of Holly's short, influential career.The city of Lubbock soon realized the financial
benefits of promoting Buddy Holly's hometown as a tourist attraction.It was unveiled in 1980,
near the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center.Buddy Holly's birth with a concert featuring Bo Diddley and Bobby Vee.National Public Radio report on the 40th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, February 3,
1999.Charles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock, Texas on September 7, 1936, to Laurence and Ella Holley.By age 13, Buddy and his friend Bob Montgomery were playing a kind of music they called "Western Bop," as well as mainstream country songs which they performed at local clubs.Eddie Crandall, the booking agent who arranged for their appearance with Bill Haley, liked Buddy enough to send some of his demos to Decca Records.From this, in early 1956, came Buddy's first recording contract offer.Buddy recorded a number of songs for Decca during 1956, of which "Blue Days, Black Nights" and "Modern Don Juan", were released.Buddy was the group's guitarist and vocalist and was accompanied by Jerry Allison on drums, Niki Sullivan on guitar, and Joe Mauldin on bass.The group was signed to Decca's subsidiary, Brunswick and "That'll Be The Day" was released in June of the same year.This time, they had chosen the right material, and by August, the group had the number one song in the nation.As the Crickets did not sing, backing vocals for the record were provided by Gary and Ramona Tollet.As Buddy Holly and The Crickets, the band continued their success with "Oh Boy!"Holly and the Crickets entered areas of music such as rhythm and blues, which until then, had been exclusive to black artists.Although at first the band was booed, by their third day performing they had become accepted.At the receptionists' desk was pretty Maria Elena Santiago and according to legend, it took Buddy less than thirty seconds to ask her for a date.After their wedding in August, the relationship between Buddy, and the other Crickets began to disintegrate.Newly married Buddy became displeased with his friends' rowdiness, and producer Norman Petty made no secret of his displeasure at the marriage (even suggesting that Maria Elena masquerade as the Crickets' secretary to avoid alienating female fans).Feeling that the Crickets could produce their own music, Holly broke relations with Petty.The tour bus developed heating problems and Buddy's drummer, Carl Bunch, came down with frostbite in his foot.The musicians performed that night in front of 1,000 teenagers and Buddy Holly sat in on drums for several of the other acts.Jennings gave his seat up to Richardson, who was running a fever and had trouble fitting his stocky frame comfortably into the bus seats.Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your plane crashes."This friendly banter of friends would haunt Jennings for years.Allsup told Valens, "I'll flip you for the remaining seat".On the toss of a coin, Valens won the seat, and Allsup the rest of his life.Just across the state line, in Fargo ND, they booked a 15 year old talent named Bobby Velline, who would go on to have a string of hit records as Bobby Vee.Tommy Allsup would one day open a club named "The Heads Up Saloon," a tribute to the coin toss that saved his life.Years later, she remarried and raised three children.Maria Elena would later move to Texas and become a beautiful, vibrant grandmother who toured the world promoting Buddy's legacy.Despite a rather short music career, Buddy Holly's innovative music style, as well as his enthusiastic and energetic performances, made him one of the most popular singers in music history.
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