![]() When he started playing around town it was a country group. “I met Buddy when I was in the seventh grade and he was in the eighth grade at junior high school. These were mainly for broadcasting purposes and weren’t issued on disc, but following Holly’s death some eventually surfaced as HOLLY IN THE HILLS and later as BUDDY HOLLY & BOB MONTGOMERY’S WESTERN AND BOP.ĭrummer Jerry Allison, an original member of the Crickets, recalls Holly’s early days. Their own material was heavily influenced by the country acts of the day, especially the Louvin Brothers, and was mainly penned by Montgomery, who in later years became a country producer and the writer of Misty Blue, a massive country and soul hit in the 1960s.Īround this time, Buddy & Bob made some recordings at Nesman Studios in Wichita Falls, 200 miles east of Lubbock. Like many rural musicians of the time, Holly and his friends were performing country hits of the day, ranging from Marty Robbins’ I Couldn’t Keep From Crying to Flatt & Scruggs’s I’ll Just Pretend. Known both as Buddy & Bob and the Western and Bop Band, the group gained local acceptance by performing on Radio KDAV’s Sunday Dance Party and playing school dances. Holly was still at Lubbock High School when he formed his first group with classmates Bob Montgomery and Larry Welborn. Others involved in the album include NickĬharles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock, the centre of a major cotton-growing area in West Texas, on September 7, 1936. So far Not Fade Away by the Crickets and the Band, Learning The Game by Mark Knopfler and Waylon Jennings, Crying, Waiting, Hoping by Marty Stuart and Steve Earle, Well, All Right by Nanci Griffith and True Love Ways by the Mavericks have been recorded. Participating artists have been encouraged to pick both their own songs and producers. It was producer Mark Wright, a long-time Holly aficionado, who came up with the idea of NOT FADE AWAY, the Holly tribute album, and wasted no time in selling his brainchild to the Nashville community. Nashville is always looking for new ways to push country, and often the best way is to lookīack. Holly’s musical flair and direction and the Crickets’ style and structure were to be the role model for many rock groups of the 1960s-from the Beatles to the Doors to the Rolling Stones.Ī true artist’s creativity can be measured by his or her staying power, and over the years Holly’s music has steadfastly refused to go away. But Holly was the first white rock performer to write most of his material, and his back-up band, The Crickets, were the first white group to utilise the r&b format of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums. There was nothing original about the musical structure of rock’n’roll back in the 1950s.The catchy, rhythmic lyrics and hard-driving beat were a natural blend born out of the integration between blacks and whites in the American South. Mickey Gilley, Linda Ronstadt and Joe Ely, have cut his material, while others have openly acknowledged Holly as a musical idol. ![]() Innovative Texan singer-songwriter was deeply influenced by country music, and over the years many country performers, including Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, ![]() ![]() The news that a Nashville-produced tribute to Holly is being planned comes as no surprise. Their efforts will soon be released on one tribute album that’s long overdueīuddy Holly remains a towering factor in pop and country music, both of which he changed irrevocably when he burst onto the charts in the late 1950s. In a recording studio somewhere in Nashville, Waylon Jennings, The Mavericks and Nanci Griffith are among the country artists saluting one of America’s mostĮnduring musical talents. First Published in Country Music International, December 1995 ![]()
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