Music writer Dominic Pedler, author of The Songwriting Secrets Of The Beatles (2010): Amongst Buddy Holly’s finest musical moments is the bridge to ‘Everyday’ which showcases his understanding of a classically derived, five-chord cycle which unfolds so irresistibly towards the song’s musical and lyrical climax; ‘Do you ever long for true love from me?’ It's a brilliant take on that bridge, descending in inevitable fifths that end on that hanging imperfect cadence rather than a settled resolution. Buddy Holly didn’t follow the standard three-chord pattern that most rock’n’roll players were doing. Buddy had moved into country-rock, or moreso invented country-rock. Country music was ‘Three chords and the truth,’ to quote the songwriter Harlan Howard. Kent Westbury, who wrote Ann-Margret’s 1961 hit ‘I Just Don’t Understand’, loved Buddy playing ‘Modern Don Juan’. Kent said, ‘I liked Buddy Holly because he could change chords faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.’ Paul McCartney: ‘The white rock’n’roll singers like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, and Jerry Lee Lewis were rooted in country. They got country and western, the Grand Ole Opry, from their own families and they merged it with black music, which was more naughty. Even Chuck Berry liked country music.’
The way Holly used bar chords was innovative. He wrote around three major chords, and he would go to a minor occasionally when he wanted to change the mood. If you are a guitarist, you generally put down a major chord as a happy chord: if it was a D chord, you would play D major and it would sound happy, but a minor chord would make the music sound sad. Buddy Holly would change the mood of the song with the minor chords to fulminant effect. When he was playing the lead solo in ‘Peggy Sue’, he was playing an A major to D, and it was structured with his rhythm guitar playing. Buddy was well versed in Ray Charles (‘Let the Good Times Roll’), liked Fats Domino’s ‘Goin’ Home’, LaVern Baker’s ‘Jim Dandy’, Sonny James’ ‘Young Love’ and its B-side ‘You’re the Reason I’m In Love’, Marvin and Johnny’s ‘Tick Tock’, Edna McGriff’s ‘Why oh Why’ and Charlie Gracie’s ‘Butterfly’.
Carolyn Hester: ‘Buddy Holly was one of the few geniuses I actually knew. His love for music was overwhelming and we used to wonder, ‘Is this guy ever going to relax?’ Rock biographer Dominic Pedler: ‘Quite apart from his use of full scale key changes, Holly always had an ear for the unexpected, often ambitiously hijacking chords from beyond the prevailing scale to create the subtle departure from cliché, which typically defines songwriting brilliance.’ British music journalist Jon Savage (author of The Kinks: The Official Biography): ‘As a Beatles child, I’ve always found classic rock’n’roll a bit hard to take. The only exceptions are the early Elvis and almost all of Buddy Holly’s catalogue. There’s something about Buddy Holly that makes him still sound contemporary. Maybe it’s his ability to get to the heart of the matter with subtlety rather than bombast. All his songs are in major keys so it’s all very joyful sounding stuff. There’s a lot of joie de vivre in his music. The mood is not one of anger and defiance but of maturity before its time: calm, stoical, affirming his ‘dreams and wishes.’’
On 6 November 1957, The Crickets performed at the Kiel Opera House in St Louis, Missouri. While scuffling backstage, Paul Anka knocked out one of the plugs, thus turning off the stage microphones. Buddy Holly was on stage and came off furious. Johnny Moore of the Drifters recalled a similar incident: ‘Paul Anka, being the practical joker he is, hid Buddy Holly’s guitar just before they called out ‘Buddy Holly’ from the stage. Someone gave him a guitar to do his act and when he came off, he was in a rage. Otherwise, Buddy was a real nice guy–quiet, introverted, never spoke too much.’ On the road, Buddy’s humour and good nature did much to defuse the explosive incompatibility of his fellow headliners. Buddy admired the precocious songwriting talent of Paul Anka, and with his usual open-heartedness he suggested they might write songs together. Mark Lewisohn: "The various members of the Beatles didn’t see Buddy Holly when he came to Liverpool as it was also the opening night of the Morgue Skiffle Cellar in Oakhill Park. Considering what Holly fans they were, it’s a bit of surprise that they did not go see Holly. It is also surprising because the Philharmonic Hall is on Hope Street and only 100 yards away from both the art college (where John Lennon was) and Liverpool Institute (where Paul and George were). Lennon was rarely interested in seeing other performers and maybe he had talked Paul and George out of it. The Philharmonic Hall staged classical concerts and on this occasion, the venue had also booked the Paul Anka tour for the previous night. Like Holly, Anka was committed to performing on a variety showcase."
In Waterloo, Iowa, on 8 July 1958, The Crickets were supported by Eddie Randall and the Downbeats at the Electric Park. Besides lending Eddie his guitar, a photo shows Buddy handing him a pick, proof that you can be a rock star and still be a nice, helpful guy. Buddy had broken his standard glasses and was wearing dark ones, which he normally wore for driving. A photographer, Dick Cole, asked Buddy to take off his glasses, but he said, ‘I’m not trying to be a glamour boy. I’m trying to be a musician.’ Maybe the darkened glasses were another inventive trademark which would be so copied in the next decades (Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, etc). At one gig, a man complained about ‘that bastard making eyes at my girl’. The fan even challenged Buddy to a fight but he was calmed by Buddy's assurance he was only looking at the audience. In May 1959, Norman Petty had recorded Buddy Knox in Clovis covering a Bobby Darin song, ‘I Ain’t Sharin’ Sharon.’ This recording of Knox was disappointing and indicates that Buddy Holly knew more about recording with saxophones than Norman Petty. Buddy had invited King Curtis, who played with the Coasters, to Clovis, primarily to accompany him on a new song, ‘Reminiscing’. That's a brilliant rock and roll recording with accompanying saxophone.
Buddy Holly had published a couple of singles which hadn’t made the charts, and some Decca executives were nursing doubts about him. Fortunately, both Bob Thiele and Dick Jacobs backed up his potential and agreed to finance an orchestral session at the Pythian Temple in New York. This session took place on 21 October 1958 with Dick Jacobs writing arrangements, and Jack Hansen securing the right orchestra musicians. There were eight violins, two violas, a cello and a harp. The Crickets, estranged from Buddy by then, were not invited. Jacobs could see the potential of It Doesn’t Matter Anymore and wrote an arrangement using pizzicato strings in unison, a sound pioneered by Tchaikovsky. Buddy once drove with George Atwood to Clovis and they wrote a song about the sun being like a big orange ball. It was never completed, though. Sonny Curtis: ‘The acoustic guitar at the beginning of ‘Three Steps to Heaven’ is Eddie Cochran and I’m playing electric guitar. He was a tremendous musician, innovative and full of ideas, and I loved his style. Cochran had a lot of drive, but you can’t compare him to Buddy Holly because Buddy was the only guitarist on most of his hit records. He had all the responsibility and he had to make every stroke count. Eddie had other guitarists, so he had more help in the studio.’
About 2 weeks before he died, Eddie Cochran was interviewed by a local magazine in the UK. When he was asked about his best friends, he said, ‘Buddy Holly and Vince Eager.’ Buddy Holly was the first rock’n’roll victim, a death that echoed that of 24-year-old James Dean in 1955, the rebel without a cause. Buddy Holly, in contrast, was a rebel with a cause. He was committed to his music and determined not to rest on his laurels and be as innovative as possible in conjunction with a punishing work schedule. Allegedly, The Crickets had phoned the Surf Ballroom but Buddy Holly could not be located. Instead, they called the next venue and left a message for Holly to call them. This seems astonishingly late to be making calls, but these are musicians, after all. Waylon Jennings, of all people, had fuelled controversy around the iffy details of the plane crash, by saying, ‘There’s a good chance that Buddy was flying that plane.’ A good chance? I think it was Waylon who was flying that night! When Buddy Holly died, he didn’t have an enemy in the world–if you don’t count Norman Petty, and who would want to count him? As Sonny Curtis wrote in his song ‘The Real Buddy Holly Story’: "He never knocked nobody down in his life." And that, when you come down to it, matters even more than the music.
With our modern hindsight, some disinformed critics could make the mistake of thinking of Buddy Holly's approach as shy or opaque. But look at Brian Wilson. His abstract songs about girls are the happiest–‘California Girls’ is him just saying what could be better than admiring a chick in a bathing suit? When he got to know girls better, this vision fell to pieces. ‘Caroline No’ and ‘Wendy’ are tragic and tormented. In addition to his astonishing ouvre, Buddy was reportedly working on new compositions with provisional titles as ‘I Feel Good’, ‘Lost Dreams’ and ‘Used-to-be’, chillingly similar to some hits from Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Philip Norman, biographer of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, describes Buddy Holly’s death as ‘the most famous tragedy in rock history’ which presumably leaves John Lennon's death as the second most famous tragedy.
Buddy Holly (2010) by Dave Laing: Most biographies start with a defining moment, a key happening in the subject’s life which should intrigue the reader. Unfortunately, Laing discusses the actor-network theory and how it applies to Buddy Holly work. This is because there is so little direct testimony of Buddy Holly's life and so Laing's essay works out as a sort of ventriloquism act. Still, Laing's essay is very good when it comes to analysing the technique of Holly’s compositions, although his form of analysis isn’t for everyone. Laing discusses the religious imagery in Holly’s music (‘You never listen to my prayer’ in ‘Maybe Baby’). He says that ‘Raining In My Heart’ is powered by an extended conceit, making a homology between rain and tears. Laing overreaches at times, when identifying Malinowski's meta messages within Holly's verses, but overall it's an interesting analysis.
In the essay Pity Peggy Sue, by sociologists Barbara Bradby and Brian Torode (Cambridge University Press, 1984), the authors point out "Peggy" as denoting the male confidence and "Sue" as the feminine attributes. Holly’s vocals have three performance modes in this mythical song: normal, falsetto and deep. Jerry Allison: "After I got married, someone told me that I was never in love with Peggy Sue. I was just infatuated, which was a little late for me to discover." Probably, Peggy Sue was more in love with Buddy Holly than Jerry Allison, whom she divorced in 1964. Jerry Allison and his second wife Joanie bought a 50 acre farm in Bon Aqua, Tennessee. According to Jerry Coleman, a former KDAV radio disc jockey in Lubbock, Texas, whose career extended back to 1956, Buddy was 'a good American boy, he could be the nicest but stubborn as hell too'. Coleman thought Buddy seemed infatuated with a girl who had a bad reputation in the Lubbock area. Buddy confessed he was in love with this girl (unhappily married) and met her at the Bamboo Club at night, although it's uncertain on what terms this relationship developed. Jerry Allison didn't give much credit to this story, although Niki Sullivan seemed convinced of the veracity of their clandestine romance. Although Allison seemed to regret his decision of not having backed up Holly against Norman Petty, he has not been too fond of looking back at the past. Possibly, too painful to reckon on having said no to a legend.
The official version of the romance with Maria Elena says that on some unspecified date in June 1958, Buddy paid a visit to Murray Deutch at Peer–Southern in New York. Maria Elena, who was then 25 years old, was a Puerto Rican recepcionist. While waiting, there was an instant spark between Buddy and her. Buddy asked her to go on a date that night. Over dinner, Buddy proposed marriage. Maria Elena thought he was kidding and said he would need her aunt Provi’s permission. At nine o’clock the next morning, Buddy turned up at the apartment of Provi Garcia to confirm his intention of marrying Maria Elena. Over the years, I realized Buddy must have known Maria Elena from his previous visits to Peer–Southern. He could hardly have failed to notice a pretty Latina girl sitting outside Murray Deutch’s door! So I learned about an interview Maria Elena gave to 16 magazine in March 1959 (A Farewell to Buddy Holly), which gives a more plausible account of her whirlwind romance with Buddy. In that interview, Maria Elena says that the pair first met in January 1958, which coincides with the Recording Stars tour (from 8-24 January). She began to think Buddy “was so shy we'd never get beyond the point of greeting each other.”
The spark between them occurred when she was lunching with Jo Harper at Howard Johnson’s and the Crickets, accompanied by Norman Petty, turned up and joined the girls. This would probably have been in late January 1958, around the time of the ‘Rave On’ session. It was after this meeting that Buddy turned to Petty and said: ‘You see that girl? I’m going to marry her.’ It was months later, probably around the time of the Big Beat tour, that Buddy and Maria Elena got closer together and shared a kiss in the back of a taxi. Maria Elena certainly attended one of the early performances of Alan Freed’s Big Beat Show in New York in March 1958, accompanied by Sonny Curtis. While Buddy was touring, they kept in touch by phone three or four times a day, and it was in June, around the ‘Early In The Morning’ session, that they got Aunt Provi’s approval of the marriage. The official version seems to have combined the events of January, March and June 1958 into one hectic couple of days. But whatever the details, Buddy and Maria Elena fell in love, very hard. Music producer Will Bratton (and Doc Pomus' son-in-law) recalls: "Buddy Holly wasn’t dangerous. He was quirky and dressed like a nerd, like the boy that dads want their daughters to marry. He would use folksy, self-deprecating humor on stage. Buddy Holly was in no way a threatening male type at all, but I think his music is very sexy." —"Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly" (2009) by John Gribbin
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