The Buddy Holley Story

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

I guess I’ll bring the subject of our music to a close for now. Before I do, I have one more album I want to share with you. I can thank my brother Don for this memory, because he is the one who bought it – with a little help from me. He wanted to buy it but didn’t have enough money himself, so he talked me out of a dollar of my money to come up with the money needed. I believe he bought it at Montgomery Wards out at Parkway City. When he joined the Navy and moved off, the album became mine.

The album was “The Buddy Holley Story”. It was the first posthumously released compilation album by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. It was released on February 28, 1959 by Coral Records less than a month after Holly's death. The album featured previously released singles by Buddy Holly on both the Brunswick label (with the Crickets) and the Coral label (as a solo artist). The album became a top twenty hit in the United States and England. The album was certified Gold in the U.S. in 1969 by the RIAA.

Of the twelve songs released on the original album, the songs "Maybe Baby", "That'll Be the Day", "Think It Over", and "Oh, Boy!" were credited to the Crickets, while the rest were credited to Buddy Holly. All of the songs were released as singles and the songs "Peggy Sue", "That'll Be the Day", "Early in the Morning", "Maybe Baby", "Oh, Boy!", "Rave On!", "Think It Over", and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" all peaked in the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the songs "Heartbeat" and "Raining In My Heart" both peaked in the lower half of the Hot 100.

Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. Holly's style was influenced by gospel music, country music, and rhythm and blues acts, which he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school. 

Holly made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1958 and soon after toured Australia and then the UK. In early 1959, he assembled a new band, consisting of future country music star Waylon Jennings (bass), famed session musician Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums), and embarked on a tour of the mid-western US. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered an airplane to travel to his next show in Moorhead, Minnesota. Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson in a tragedy later referred to by Don McLean as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie".

During his short career, Holly wrote and recorded many songs. He is often regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums. Holly was a major influence on later popular music artists, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Hollies, Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds, Marshall Crenshaw, and Elton John. Holly was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of 100 Greatest Artists in 2010.

I really don’t think I had paid any attention to Buddy Holley before I heard the album, but it was one I played over and over after we bought it. It was one of those albums that I listened to so much that I knew the track order of both sides and knew which song would play next when one ended. When I bought a jukebox in the Seventies it was filled with Buddy Holley 45s and were played often. As a matter of fact they were played so much that one day I was shocked to hear my daughter Tiffany walking down the hall of our house singing “That’ll Be the Day” when she was five years old. That was the first time I ever heard her sing a song solo. It was the start of her love of music and today she still sings in a choral group in San Diego.

The Wayback Machine

Oh, Boy! - Buddy Holley

"Oh, Boy!" is a song written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty. The song was included on the album The "Chirping" Crickets and was also released as the A-side of a single, with "Not Fade Away" as the B-side. The song peaked at number 10 on the US charts, number 3 on the UK charts in early 1958, and number 26 in Canada. 

The original lyrics were 'All my love, all my kissing, you're gonna see what you've been missing', but Buddy changed the words to, 'All my love, all my kissing, you don't know what you've been missing'."

A Trivia Question This Week!

Do any of you know how Buddy Holley was influenced by John Wayne? One of Buddy's biggest hits was conceived one night when he was leaving a movie theater after seeing a John Wayne movie. Use the form below to give me your answer.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, 

And Comments

I received no comments or questions last week.