Tomorrow is the 65th anniversary of “The Day The Music Died” – the plane crash in Clear Lake IA that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and Jiles “Big Bopper” Richardson.
I’m a huge music trivia nerd – and even I was unaware of the impact Holly made, not in terms of songs, but in how rock and roll was made.
Buddy Holly’s impact on music in his 22 years is scarcely understood even by a lot of serious fans of music, but indeed of Holly himself – myself included.
I learned a lot from this writeup:
In many ways it’s a shame that Buddy spent most of his short career fighting for the things that would help rock and roll music to thrive in the decades to come.
They told him only producers can produce music, not musicians.
He proved them wrong.
They told him that a four piece band consisting of two guitars (rhythm and lead), a stand up bass, and drums wasn’t enough instrumentation to create a hit record.
He proved them wrong
They told him that songwriters only wrote songs, and musicians only played music. You can’t do both.
He proved them wrong.
They told him he would never become a rock and roll star because you had to be good looking like Elvis Presley. Plus he could never make it by wearing glasses.
He proved them wrong.
They told him orchestral arrangements and double tracking vocals in rock music could never work.
He proved them wrong.
They told him that no one from a one horse town by the name of Lubbock, Texas could ever become famous. You had to be from a big city like Los Angeles or New York.
He proved them wrong.
They told him that no musician had the right to question a record label about copyrights, promotion, or ownership of one’s music.
He proved them wrong.
Don McLean was a little wrong – the music died when the iPod was invented.
Anyway – here’s celebrating Buddy Holly:
By the way, September 7 would have been Holly’s 88th birthday .
Well said. In my conservative evangelical circles, it is often debated what kinds of music can be used in church–real rock & roll is often proscribed due to guilt by association fallacies involving the likes of Gene Simmons. My response is to point out that Holly was a faithful Baptist.
Holly’s work also illustrates a reality in church and secular music; when one adds instrumentalists or vocalists, it’s important to make sure that they actually add something to the finished product. Holly’s success with a very small band gives us reason to ask ourselves “are we adding to musicality, or are we just another person making mistakes on stage with jitter and the like?”.
Alll these years later, those Holly sides still leap off the record. He was so good.