Where were you that day? -- no mando, long.

[Bernie Daniel]

Fifty years ago today. I was a freshman in high school living on a small farm outside Fargo, North Dakota. We had just moved there that fall from the western end of the State to care for my grand-dad at Mom's old family home.

That February day in 1959 started like any Saturday on the farm – doing the chores -- milking & feeding the cows all the usual including – cleaning the horse stalls. After breakfast, I was scheduled to spend the day with Dad and my uncle -- we planned to fix a piece of the fence line and to cut and haul firewood from our wooded pasture that was bordered by the northerly flowing Red River.

But today I did not mind the work out in the bitter cold so much because that evening I had the use of the car, and I had a date with the lovely Anna Marie, dark-eyed girl of my dreams. We were going to the Winter Dance Party tour at the Armory just across the river in Moorhead, Minnesota. These were national bands -- kind of mind boggling for two kids like us from the “sticks”. The Big Bopper, Richie Valens…. but most of all, Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Little did I know that even before I woke up that day at 5 am to start chores that Buddy had already left us – killed hours before just outside of Clear Lake, Iowa. There was no cable or satellite or all day news with talking heads in 1959. In Fargo, the TV programming started around noon I think and we did not even turn it on until after supper time. The only thing on the radio that morning was the usual weekend farm report with grain prices and weather forecast from the North Dakota Agricultural College on the local station NBC affiliate, WDAY. I guess this station was hardwired into that radio on the shelf over the kitchen table – but who would know? As per Dad’s orders no one was never to touch the dang thing -- ever.

So it was not until early afternoon that my sister gave an emergency sign for me to come back to the farmhouse -- as I cleared the woods she called from the porch “Anna Maria called you on the phone -- she said Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash this morning………”

Everything that happened that day is as clear in my mind as the events around the JFK assination in November of 1963. I later found out that Buddy had been scheduled to land at Hector Field (which later was renamed the Fargo International Airport) – it was only 6 miles from our farm.

Rock & roll music suffered a huge loss that day. In my view Buddy would probably have become the most powerful single influence on rock & roll if you judge by what he did with the short two years he had. He was always on the edge of the envelope. He was more than a great enterainer and musician -- he was also a great innovator of technic and presentation as well as a powerful and edgy songwriter. The music truly died that day and a little piece of me died as well I believe.

[Fretbear]

Great post Bernie, thanks for sharing;
You obviously come by your love of rural/roots music honestly....

[Hayduke]

I was 9 yrs. old living 30 miles away and was too busy being a kid to appreciate what had happened that morning.

Hard to say how influential any of those who died would have been had they lived. For many years this past weekend in Clear Lake has been a really big deal with their Winter Dance Party at the Surf Ball Room. This past weekend's 50th anniversary celebration must have been pretty spectacular. Check out the local paper's archives for the past week: http://www.globegazette.com/

[Eddie Sheehy]

I was 4 and in Ireland. I did however visit Clear Lake just after I came to the States in 1984 while I was visiting friends in Hampton. Yep, that day is right up there with JFK assassination.

[Rick Schmidlin]

That was about the time when I was living in Wayne N.J and going to kindergarten. During a parents teachers meeting that Feburary my teacher brought in her daughter who was black. They found out (my parents were not involved) that my teacher was and of lighter skin and she was asked to leave. They sweitched the entire class to the Oakland N.J. school for the rest of the year. Something in side of me died when I learned what happened. It was also the first year I listened to rock n roll and the music helped me understand.

[woodwizard]

I was 7 and most likely playing with my Davey Crocket set in the back yard in West Covina Calif.

[Santiago]

I wasn't born for another five months or so.

[Bernie Daniel]

Well maybe this would be a fitting cap to this string.

Here is Buddy at the height of his form on one of his first national TV appearances. I remember actually seeing this because I was already into Holly when this show was broadcast. And even my grandpa thought it was OK because he was more dignified than Elvis :)

I think that this the very first times I had actually seen live performance by Buddy -- I was not living in Fargo at the time we were still in the living in the northwestern corner of North Dakota in the shadow of Montana and Saskatchewan.

The credits say this was an American Bandstand appearance but that is wrong -- this would have been the Arthur Murry Dance Hour and the woman doing the intro is his wife Kathryn Murry. And also was in 1957 not 1958.



BTW while I do not know that Buddy ever played the mandolin but he was a pretty good Texas fiddler -- so he sure could have. He was a great man in the same way as Bill Monroe -- IMHO.

[ira]

i wasn't born till a coupla years later...but it is amazing to me how buddy's tunes are as relevant today as they were then...copied regularly by many who play...
i do believe that he would have done amazing things!!!

[Richard Singleton]

Amazing video. The folks behind Buddy and the Crickets are barely moving during the song. (the Arthur Murray dancers?)

[EdHanrahan]

Bernie - Thanks for getting, thus far, 286 of us thinking pretty deeply.

I was a 7th grader in the Long Island suburbs of NY, and had just discovered music thanks to the (solder-it-yourself) Knight Kit radio that had appeared under the Christmas tree.

As to "influential": Let's not forget that Buddy had a HUGE impact on some English kid named, uhmm, Lennon.

- Ed

[Bernie Daniel]

Richard Singleton: The folks behind Buddy and the Crickets are barely moving during the song. (the Arthur Murray dancers?)

:)) Ha Richard I see you weren't around then :)

But you are SO right I saw that myself and LMAO.

You had to have been there. Those were sophisticated girls with breeding and into dance, finer music, and the arts! :) It would just not do for them to be seen clapping to (and speak softly now rock and roll). But I think if you look close you will notice that some of them REALLY wanted to clap though!.

And then just listen to Mrs. Murry's appologetic intro to the band. The show took some flak from proper folks for that one.

Of course seen now it is hilarious - given the rot gut we sometimes (always?) see in the media these days -- but for 1957 let me tell you that was risque.

Grandpa (dad's side) was the patricach of an large extended German family (I had 41 first cousins on that side alone) - he did not mind me and my closest cousin Carolyn stamping, clapping and yelling while watching Buddy Holly or Bill Halley -- but Elvis was OUT! His dancing was immoral --too much hip movement don't you know! :))

[Richard Singleton]

Yeah, I was 6 1/2 years old then, didn't even learn about Buddy Holly until the 70's and Linda Ronstadt's and others covers of him. Then I went back to the source and picked up the 20 Golden Greats compilation. What a loss to rock and roll.

[Bernie Daniel]

EdHanrahan: As to "influential": Let's not forget that Buddy had a HUGE impact on some English kid named, uhmm, Lennon.

Yes he was quite influential with the English youth and rockers in addition to the the Beatles he had a big impact on the Stones and Clapton and others -- in fact I think we could probably "blame" Buddy, in part at least, for the "English Invasion" that followed in the mid-1960's.

He died at 23 years of age (born in 1936) -- and was totally self-taught -- his first known recording was on a wire recorder made in 1949 -- but his influence on the national scene was only about 2 years (give or take a few months depending on what you call "national"). Yet after he died his record label kept putting out new stuff for years later.

He was a one in a hundred million -- you just have to listen to his songs to know that.

How many know his first love in music --or at least the first music he played (guitar and fiddle) was bluegrass? :)

Oh and as to the OP. I appologize -- my wife rightly points out that I was not a freshman in 1959 -- and she is right -- it WAS my first year at that school but I was a sophomore -- the first thing to go is your brain sometimes.

[CES]

I wasn't born for a while yet, but remember how upset my mom was when Elvis died. It's easy to forget how good he was early on given the later drug/obese/trainwreck years and everyone's fascination with Vegas Elvis.

My folks weren't huge Holly fans, but my dad recalls a similar sense of shock and loss that day.

Not to hijack at all, but the most influential "loss" from my youth was probably Len Bias...next to my religion/upbringing/parents influence his death was the biggest reason I've never tried any illegal drugs. He didn't play mandolin to my knowledge (had to get the M word in somewhere), but at the time sports were my obsession as music is now. The closest I've come to feeling that sadness from a "celebrity" death since was with Butch's recent fight and passing, but the shock factor obviously wasn't there in his case.

Thanks for the OP--

[Bruce Stein]

I was only two years old at the time. And like many on this board have stated, I found Buddy by moving back from the Beatles. Huge influence and huge lost. Last year my wife and I attended a Nancy Griffin concert. She talked about growing up in Texas and driving to her grandfather's house on Sunday night to watch the Ed Sullivan Show "when our boys were on." The "our boys" she was referring to was Buddy Holly and Crickets. Second story...worked for a while during college at the local Ramada Inn. One of my duties was picking up the parking lot. One day I found a magentic sign that had fallen off a tour bus. The sign said...Clear Lake, Iowa. I had it on my frig for years, until my first wife threw it away. I don't think she ever understand why I kept it. I miss the sign way more than her.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Buddy Holly was,still is & always will be the ultimate 'rocker' for me & Ritchie Valens recorded my favourite Rock & Roll song,"La Bamba". I was close to 14 years old & still at school when they were killed. I had many 78 RPM records of Buddy which my parents had bought me & had many friends who were also great fans.
There was a recent BBC radio programme about the events that lead up to the trip that they all took,& what lead up to the fatal plane flight. I'm not crowing about anything here - but after he was killed,it was the British fans that helped keep his name alive.He became next to forgotten by 'most' American fans. That was stated quite unequivically by Maria Elena,when she was interviewed for the programme. Anyway,his name & his music live on. In the programme,it was stated that Buddy's idea was to move back to Texas,to open his own recording studio.I reckon he'd had enough of Norman Petty by this time. Petty still had a firm grasp of most of the money that Buddy & the Crickets had made. He in fact became the 'administrator' to Buddy's estate after his death.One of his brothers told the programme that the cash was split 3 ways - 1/3 to maria Elena,1/3 to Buddy's family & 1/3 to Petty himself,in spite of the fact that towards the end of Buddy's career,Petty had done ziltch for him.
After his death,most of hs records became available on 45 RPM discs,which i avidly collected, along with many of my friends. I had all the released songs on 45 'singles' & EP's. It was only many years later that Buddy's recordings with Bob Montgomery became available & i have all those on LP as well,as part of a huge boxed set of LP's.
I don't know re.the USA,but Buddy Holly's songs are still played regularly on BBC radio in the UK
& hopefully will be for years to come - i can feel an urge to get my Guitar out & get it on to "Rock Around With Ollie Vee" comin' on & then maybe "Rave On" & "Maybe baby" ............,
Saska :cool:

[mandozilla]

Bernie said:

"How many know his first love in music --or at least the first music he played (guitar and fiddle) was bluegrass?"

I heard that...and then he soon realized that there was tens of dollars to be made playing bluegrass and quickly switched to Rock & Roll. HaHaHa :))

I was only 6 years old the day the music died :crying: but I clearly remember hearing Buddy, Ritchie, and the Big Bopper on the radio and recordings (my 3 older brothers were teenagers at that time) during their brief careers and even long after that tragic day. :(

:mandosmiley:

[Howard33]

14yrs before my time, although I do appreciate the music of Holly and the Bopper.

[Bernie Daniel]

Saska: He became next to forgotten by 'most' American fans. That was stated quite unequivically by Maria Elena,when she was interviewed for the programme. Anyway,his name & his music live on. In the programme,it was stated that Buddy's idea was to move back to Texas,to open his own recording studio.I reckon he'd had enough of Norman Petty by this time.

I must say I really do not think that is the case at all -- he has always (and always will) have a huge place in American rock and roll. I'm not sure what evidence there would be for that -- maybe the Elvis phenomena did make it seem like other performers were lost in the noise -- esp. ones no longer living or performing.

Keep in mind that Maria has not been a person without contraversy herself -- over the years at least three mayors of Lubbock have despaired of trying honor Buddy with street names and monuments because she sees everything as an attempt to gain from his name - instead of a genuine attempt to honor him -- and she has opposed and stopped many of these projects -- so there is some baggage there. I'm not taking any issue with her -- maybe it is justified -- I do not know the intimate details of these things.

As to Petty I think you are probably right about him and I do believe its pretty clear that Buddy was going to make some changes. Buddy had his issues and was pretty controlling too -- he and the Crickets were off and on again.

Buddy Holly is regularly played on radio in the USA -- but most of the older music is played on radios the specifically focus on the "oldies'. I do think more could have been made of the 50th anniversary of his death -- it was mentioned but I think a formal tribute would have made me happy.

[Mike Snyder]

I was five, and getting good at falling out of trees onto my head. Shortly later I would discover Motown music and fall in love with Soul. Buddy made some of the only blue-eyed music that could deliver that kind of raw emotion, at that time. Rave on, Buddy.

[AlanN]

Thanks for posting that video. Drumming was interesting - a rolling bass thunder with no cymbal hits.

The 70's punk thing grabbed some of this groove.

[Phillip Tigue]

Waaay too soon for me. But I cut my teeth on the Beatles thanks to my father. I remember 1980 and John Lennon very well, though.

Makes you wonder where and what the likes of Buddy Holly, Elvis, and Lennon could have put out if they'd continued on...

[Gerard Dick]

I had just turned 6 and was being fed a steady diet of classical music by my parents. I didn't discover this stuff until my teens.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Bernie - I can only quote what Maria Elena said herself on the BBC radio programme.Elvis was the 'big thing' in the USA after Buddy died & remained so,but not so much in the UK until later. The Buddy Holly Fan club of Great Britain was instrumental in getting many of Buddy's shelved 'home recordings' released. The fan club also pestered both the Coral & Brunswick record companies to release many of Buddy's recordings as 45 rpm 'singles',which they did - i bought every one.
I'm sure that thousands of US fans remained loyal to Buddy Holly & are STILL loyal to this day - you're one of them Bernie. He was the greatest 'rocker' ever.His records are still full of a life & energy that modern bands can't even come close to - praise the good Lord for records !,
Saska

[Bernie Daniel]

Saska: He was the greatest 'rocker' ever.His records are still full of a life & energy that modern bands can't even come close to - praise the good Lord for records !

Yes I think a strong case for that view can be made. The songs speak for themselves and for good old Buddy don't they?

Don't you often wonder what he would be like today at age 73? And what would his continued influence have done to rock & roll?

I am thinking he might well have moved his music back toward country in the 1970's and that the term "crossover" would have been invented 20 years earlier! :)

[Ivan Kelsall]

His last recordings, other than the ones he did at home to his own Guitar accompaniment,were with Dick Jacobs & his Orchestra - "True Love Ways" / "Moondreams" & of course his greatest UK hit "It Doesn't Matter Any More". I think that he may have gone oin to sing more songs in that genre,but the BBC prog.did saythat he intended to return to Texas & his idea was to have his own studio. Maybe he'd record himself as well as others. It does seem that Norman Petty had outlived his welcome.He was great when they began,but i think that he became too much of a dictator ie."you can do what you want as long as it's what i say". It was that attitude that that made Buddy & Maria go off to New York in the first place.
Anyhow,when all's said & done,we lost 3 awesome stars that day,Buddy Holly being the most
renowned,but who knows what Ritchie Valens & J.P.Richardson "The Big Bopper" might have
gone on to do ?. J.P. had written quite a few hits for other folk as well as himself,so that might have been his future,we'll never know.We'll just have to be thankful that he lived as long as he did & recorded some of our fondest memories of thos days,
Saska :(

[billkilpatrick]

great post bernie - sorry i stumbled onto it this late.

i would have been 12 at the time, when we (my family) were planning to move into new york city. the guitar break for "peggy sue" is one of those things that always sounds good - no matter how many times you hear it. i remember a girl named peggy in my class who was mighty sick of having "sue" tacked onto her name ...

bobby fuller had a similar sound - tom petty reminds me of him as well - but i agree, buddy holly would have been a tremendous influence ... wonder what a buddy holly/bob dylan collaboration would have sounded like? ... slightly more up-tempo "billy the kid" score perhaps?

- bill*

---
http://www.youtube.com/user/billkilpatrick

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hey Bill - You're showing your age here Buddy - joint the club (LOL !!!). Great,great music & i think i'm going to O.D. on it today. Just get the old Tokai Telecaster out,plug it in,select LOUD & off i go. I could never play the Tommy Allsup breaks to "Heartbeat" & "It's So Easy",two of the sweetest Guitar breaks EVER in rock & roll - & that guy's still gowing strong,here he is in 2009 & still pickin',
Saska ;)

[Spiritinthesky]

From http://www.thisdayinmusic.com

A young Bob Dylan attended the Duluth National Guard Armory show on 31st January 1959, two nights before Holly's death.

The family name was "Holley". When Buddy received his first recording contract from Decca Records in 1956, they inadvertently spelled his last name as "Holly". He kept it that way for the rest of his career.

Buddy failed his draft physical because of his poor eyesight, (and he also had a stomach ulcer).

Many groups from the era named themselves after insects, they did the same and choose "Crickets" as it was the only insect, which made its own "music", by chirping. (They almost named themselves the Beetles!).

Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison had watched a John Wayne movie titled The Searchers. Each time that Wayne became disgruntled with something someone said, he'd mutter "That'll be the day". That catch phrase became the title of the first hit record by Buddy Holly.

"Peggy Sue" was an actual person. Peggy Sue Gerron attended Lubbock High School and was the girlfriend and eventual wife of Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly's drummer.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the first all-white group to perform at New York's famed Apollo Theatre.

The Crickets were the first self-contained band and what you heard on record is what you heard at live performances, (The Beatles molded themselves after the Crickets).

He was one of the first rock 'n' rollers to use overdubbing when one-track recording was the rule, and one of the first to use strings on a rock 'n' roll record. Buddy Holly was one of the few to write the majority of his own material and then perform it.

Their tour busses kept breaking down and when they arrived in Clear Lake, Iowa to perform at the Surf Ballroom the evening of February 2, 1959, Buddy decided to charter a small plane to take he, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) to their next stop.

The red Beechcraft Bonanza, took off from Mason City, ten miles east of Clear Lake, at around 1:50 AM on February 3, 1959. The weather was cold and snowy. The plane crashed just after taking off, eight miles from the Mason City airport. The pilot, Valens, Richardson and Holly, (who was found twenty feet from the point of impact) all died.

[Bernie Daniel]

Yes Bill -- interesting thought of Bob Dylan and Buddy Holly -- they might have not seen eye to eye on somethings but who knows? Compared to the present time everything for back then seems benign to me.

Buddy's death was a real shock -- in fact but for the fact that my grandmother had been killed the fall before that was the first time I had ever experinced anything like that -- and amazingly less than two weeks after Buddy died my grand dad had a heart attack while we were ice fishing in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota and he was gone. So it was a memorable year for me.

But I think the fact that there was this musical hole in my life was what got me looking and I got into with Johnny Horton who had a big hit with "T"he battle of New Orleans" a few months later. Then in Novemeber of 1960 a drunk drive killed him down in Texas. He was married to Hank Williams former wife at the time.

Then Dylan came along a few years later (1963?) when I was blown away by "Corina Corina".


Yes, Bob Fuller was great. And of course he was from Texas also and died mysteriously -- probably murdered.

I wonder if Saska being in England was into Liam (Lee) Lynch? I thought he was a great singer also. In fact he covered a few of Buddy's songs like "Heartbeat".

We still have not worked much mandolin content into this thread have we? :)

[Ivan Kelsall]

Not much Mandolin Bernie it's true,but a whole lot of nostalgia of the best sort. I must admit to never having heard/heard of Liam "Lee" Lynch at all. Shortly after the death of Buddy Holly,there was a whole raft of 'sound alikes',Bobby Vee possibly being the most well known. The English singer,Mike Berry did a song "A tribute To Buddy Holly" which was a big hit over here. We also had
Tommy Wroe from the US with "Sheila",a 'Peggy Sue' style song.
I don't think that any other singer has had so much influence in such a short career as Buddy Holly,an influence which is still going on - quite awesome to think about.
I have two DVD's re.Buddy's life & one of the nicest things about both of them,is listening to Jerry (Ivan) Allison's Texas drawl - i really could listen to that voice for hours,except when he's singing the song he recorded using his middle name, "Real Wild Child" - it makes me cringe,
Saska (Ivan Kelsall);)