Fifties Musical Heroines, Us and Generation X

Eileen Barton ‎– Everybody's Buddy (Epic Records) ‎– arranged by Marion Evans Orchestra (1957), written by Moose Charlap (Broadway composer best known for Peter Pan, 1954), with lyrics by Lee Adams.

Aesthetically, Buddy Holly might have been the most unlikely looking rock 'n' roll star of the 1950s. But he was, after Elvis Presley, unquestionably the most influential. In the fifties, Eisenhower was in the White House, Ricky loved Lucy, Pepsodent toothpaste erased the yellow teeth stains, and $10 in 1950 was equivalent in purchasing power to $104.44 in 2019. To be sure, in the whole VistaVision expanse of progress, stability, enlightenment, and shiny chromium plating, this new thing called rock 'n' roll was toiling to survive. Those three-chord tremolo rockabilly love ballads had a balm effect to counter the atomic bomb fears. Dave Laing's essay The Sound of Our Time (1969) implicitly promotes the idea of rock and roll in general, and Buddy Holly's music in particular, as an avant-garde art. In The Marxist Theory of Art (1978) Laing presents Julia Kristeva's account of the challenge the 'poetic language' of the literary avant-garde poses to Western culture. This challenge results from the way it contests the dominance of symbolic language, instead privileging semiotic communication, 'in the form of rhythms, intonations, lexical and rhetorical transformations'. Dave Laing had earlier noted the challenge posed by rock music to traditional Western song, specifically to the ballad, which until after the Second World War was the 'mainstay of popular song'. This ancient art form derived from the 'Courtly Code of Love' was formulated in mediaeval Western Europe. More specifically, Laing argues that Holly's distinctive vocal techniques undermine the coherence of the singing tone, on which the traditional ballad depends. 'Holly's approach was entirely new. The straight singing of a lyric is continually punctuated by exclamatory effects of various kinds. The voice suddenly swoops upwards or downwards, syllables are lengthened to cover three or more notes (as in 'ba-ay-by'), and sometimes phrases are spoken during instrumental solos'. In his analysis of Buddy Holly's vocal tecniques, Laing directly contrasts the traditional singer, who seeks 'to hold a note with maximum emotional effect', with Holly, who does not seem to seek that effect.

Few notes are held for more than one or two beats in Holly's records, so they avoid the overpowering emotion of the ballads typical of that period. Holly's listeners are not necessarily overwhelmed, as they used to feel by listening to a traditional ballad, but they have their attention redirected by the frequent changes of tone, pitch, and phrasing. For Laing, Holly's wide variety of vocal techniques is radical in that it precludes the sustained unity necessary for the representation of a homogeneous emotion. It is true that in ordinary usage an emotion, such as 'grief' or 'love', has to endure in time, unlike a sensation such as 'pain', which may be momentary (see Wittgenstein, 1968). Laing is in part justified in arguing that if Holly's style consistently avoids sustained notes, this constitutes a refusal of traditional sentimentality, since 'some of the vocal techniques Holly employs cannot be said to have emotional correlates in real life.' A transcendent type of idealisation of a woman is, in Laing's account, the prototype for the muses romantically celebrated throughout the traditional Western ballad. However, rock and roll music, too, conjures up idealisations of women, which become transcendent objects of veneration. Famous among them is Buddy Holly's 'Peggy Sue'. As Jonathan Cott says, Peggy Sue is "mysterious, hardly there," but she's revived and recreated in a succession of other songs: by Holly (in Peggy Sue Got Married), and subsequently by Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and the Beatles.

Holly's famous 'hiccup' signature, or in the sudden glides from deep bass to falsetto (and back again), reveals the child inside the man, and the man inside the child. Up to this point, the lyrics in "Peggy Sue" have performed a step-by-step narrative transformation, as follows: verse 1 boy talks to boy about his loneliness; verse 2 man expresses desire for woman in quasi-religious terms; verse 3 a father figure talks affectionately to an infantilized girl; verse 4 young man uncertainly confesses true love to a girl. In a sense, defences are progressively stripped away as the narrative approaches an actual encounter. He is excitedly anticipating the transition from talking about 'My Peggy Sue' to calling her that to her face. The same happens in bars 6-7 of verse 2, where the phrase is similarly ambiguous in facilitating a transition from addressing Peggy Sue as absent in the verse, to addressing her as present in the refrain. Here the excitement is increased by the further off-beat 'P'heggy' in the preceding phrase (the 'Oh P'heggy' of bars 4-5). But after bar 6 of verse 2, the off-beat 'P' never reappears.

Musically, the syncopation is here left unresolved, making 'Peggy Sue' sound like a question, or a call expecting a response. It is tempting to see the association of 'Sue', 'gal' and 'love' as indicating the femininity of the syncopated rhythms, with 'yes' being Sue's verbal response to the singer. Laing praises Holly for breaking with the transcendentalism of the traditional ballad, modelled on a Virgin Mary like figure. In Peggy Sue, Holly omits all descriptions of the character of his heroine, while he seems to grow from stuttering boy (verse 1) through eager anticipation (verse 3) to self-confident man (verse 6). --"Pity Peggy Sue" (1984) by Barbara Bradby & Brian Torode

There is some controversy associated with Peggy Sue Gerron's book because it is unauthorized. Buddy Holly's wife disavowed the book and the Buddy Holly Center refuses to sell it (mostly because of an arrangement with his estate). Despite those puritanical values, sex actually surpassed drugs, rock ’n’ roll, and revolutionary politics as the leading obsession of the fifties, and sexual implications were perceived even where none existed. Peggy Sue Gerron details the era when young women were expected to keep an image of virtue, a façade that served mostly for social decorum; however she describes her adventurous spirit (she was a bit of a wild gal) and seems constantly jealous of Maria Elena's innate sophistication. As a reader comments of Ms Gerron's book: It's hard to know where to begin with this 'memoir'.  I'd love to sit down with Jerry Allison or some relatives of the Holley family. Especially Maria Elena Holly. 'Pretty' Peggy Sue, she is not. I've never seen such a plain Jane so full of herself. She claims she turned on Buddy and Jerry to R&B. There hardly were white teenagers in Lubbock in the 1950's buying records by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. They were considered 'dirty music' and I even doubt the record stores in Lubbock stocked these. She is naïve in one paragraph, and worldly in the next. She is sent to Catholic girls school in California because 'her parents are fighting and it's upsetting her.' When girls in the 50's and 60's got sent to Catholic school--it was because they were wild or contemptuous of their parents. Peggy Sue smoked Viceroys (she seems proud of smoking such a harsh cigarette) and she drank often. Figure it out again--no one was sent off from Lubbock to California out of her hometown high school because she was a good girl.

Although Peggy Sue remembers Buddy Holly fondly, I feel sorry for Jerry Allison. She denigrates him and admits she used him to get out of her home and into his group (The Crickets), maybe hoping for a music business career. She says over and over 'our music', like she had contributed to the Clovis sessions. None of her so-called private conversations with Buddy Holly can be documented or verified. It's all hearsay. Why would Holly have about 30 minutes of conversation with Peggy Sue and then fall in love with her? Let's not forget Peggy Sue was his drummer friend's wife. Holly never contacted Peggy Sue back after the so-called elevator speech (when he allegedly tells her along the lines he's going to take care of her). She's clearly making all this up to enhance her story--which she's told so long it's become real to her. Why did she elope with Jerry Allison? Good girls didn't elope. Why did she stay with Allison although she couldn't stand him? It's because Peggy Sue Gerron was probably a user and a hanger on. I truly doubt Buddy Holly even paid attention to her except to be polite. After the wedding night in Acapulco, Maria Elena provokes again Peggy Sue's envy when she implies how 'considerate' and 'passionate' Buddy was under the sheets. It's also well documented by Joe B. and Larry Holley that the song was originally Cindy Lou for Buddy's niece, but Buddy changed it on Allison's request. It could have been Mary Lou or Betty Sue. Gerron was fortunate it was Peggy Sue. I'd love to see her so-called journals. She dishes on people who cannot comment back, she praises and loves Norman & Vi Petty, who cheated Buddy out of millions. Source: www.amazon.com 

Johnnie Walker’s BBC Radio 2 – 8 July 2018, in Harrow (UK). This is a transcript of part of the conversation, that ran throughout the show, between Johnnie Walker (JW) and his guest Chris Difford (CD). CD: I’ve been running songwriter workshops for 26 years, and just recently I did one a couple of weeks back, supported by the Buddy Holly Foundation. JW: And what great people are involved with the Buddy Holly Foundation? CD: Well, they are amazing. They are raising tons of money for research of cancer. And just recently Peter Bradley, who runs the Buddy Holly Foundation, was in Dallas, Texas, and Maria Elena, Buddy’s widow, went to the cupboard and brought out a box and said, ‘You may as well have these,’ and revealed six reel-to-reel tapes. Three of them were demos of Buddy Holly, which I think no one has ever heard, and other recordings of him at the Palladium, which the BBC archives do not own. I’ve listened some demos and they are the most extraordinary thing. The unpublished demos probably contain Buddy’s version of Stay Close To Me, Ah-Ha, Drown in my own tears, Cindy Lou (calypso version), Gotta Travel On, his 1959 concert of Eau Claire Wisconsin, and an acoustic version of True Love Ways.

There are many ways to interpret Jordan Peele’s Us and the scissor-wielding doppelgängers who dwell within it. The subterranean shadow people relegated to living in America’s collective basement can be viewed as the “lower” class that has historically been ignored in this country. The most immediate, obvious take on Us, and one that is completely valid, is to view it through that lens, as a statement on the insidiousness of oppression. The Reds may represent the failure of all of us to lift each other up. But the disturbing beauty of Peele’s second big-screen horror project is that it’s possible to glean more than one meaning from it. Which is why I also view it as a commentary on Generation X, a marginalized group that’s long realized the promises made during its youth will never be fulfilled. The Generation X has been overlooked by the Millenials, who, according to a new study in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, those born in the 1990s are more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive in their early 20s as Gen Xers were. Compared with baby boomers, millennials look like nuns and priests. The proffered reasons for millennial abstinence? A culture of overwork and an obsession with career status, an online-dating milieu, and above all, an uptick in the use of libido-busting antidepressants and anxieties surrounding sexual consent.

Adelaide’s dad wins her a prize: a Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” T-shirt, featuring an image from the King of Pop’s groundbreaking video. First, the ‘50s horror movie within the video, when he comes out as a werewolf (“I’m not like other guys”), and later, when he reveals himself to be a zombie with killer dance moves. The fact that, as Leaving Neverland has recently driven home, real-life Jackson may have had another monstrous alter ego adds another, likely unintended, layer to Peele’s decision to clothe his heroine in “Thriller” at the moment when her mischievous other, the so-called “Red,” succeeds in taking over her identity. Jackson's personality split between the public angel and the private devil suggests he had a dark side which he kept hidden. What the hell did Hands Across America have to do with anything? That event, a fund-raiser for America’s hungry and homeless organized by the USA for Africa organization, took a total of 15 minutes to unfold. Fifteen minutes: The same amount of time it took for young Adelaide to go missing, the number of minutes it was supposed to take the police to get to the Wilsons’ house, an amount very close to the run time of Michael Jackson’s video for “Thriller,” and how long it took in May 1986 to, allegedly, make the world better for the less fortunate. 

But then Adelaide got older and she realized that life wasn’t improving, she was just stuck. She had been forgotten, left out, quite literally replaced, and the world kept moving on without her as if she did not exist. Certainly that captures the sentiments of many in the lower and middle classes in this country. But if it doesn’t also describe the feelings of the perpetually overlooked Gen Xers I don’t know what does. Generation X has a reputation for being cynical. Certainly the part of Adelaide’s plan that involves mass murder qualifies as cynical and dark. But there’s part of her that’s still fixated on the idea of Hands Across America and finally seeing it happen. The closing shots of the film, when we see all those red jumpsuited doppelgängers holding hands as far as the eye can see, suggests the second part of her mission was accomplished. Unfortunately, the original Adelaide isn’t able to kill the original Red and claim the spot that should have been hers. Red holds on to her role as Adelaide. And that feels right for a film that, on one of its many levels, functions as an allegory for the Generation X experience. The real Adelaide, our Gen Xer heroine, has been edged out of American life. Source: www.vulture.com

Grunge: Music and Memory, Kurt Cobain

Danny Goldberg knew Kurt Cobain for only the final few years of Cobain’s short life, but as Nirvana’s manager—and something of a father figure—Goldberg had a rare vantage point from which to experience Cobain’s rapid ascent and tragically blunt end. So, by necessity, Goldberg’s Serving The Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain blurs the line between biography and memoir. In Serving The Servant, Goldberg manages to both give Cobain the credit he deserves for a seismic pop culture shift and to portray him as a regular human being. He admits as much when he claims not to have been as aware of Cobain’s drug use as others in their inner circle were, focusing instead on the intricacies of recording and promotion. Goldberg doesn’t let Cobain off the hook completely. At one point, he refers to Cobain as exuding “an odious junkie smugness.” In March of 1994, Cobain overdosed and went into a coma; Goldberg foolishly hoped it might be a wake-up call. By early April, Cobain was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Serving The Servant arrives 25 years later, almost to the day. Goldberg spoke at Cobain’s funeral, and was mocked by naysayers for treating him too reverently—apparently pouring your heart out isn’t punk. Goldberg clearly loved Cobain, and he humanizes him with the kind of small stories that wouldn’t necessarily make sense for a more sweeping biography, like the fact that Cobain cherished The Chipmunks Sing The Beatles so much that he owned four copies. Goldberg knew Cobain intimately, but admits, too, that “Sometimes I felt as close to him as a brother and other times he seemed a galaxy removed, barely perceptible.” Goldberg conveys that split nicely—and, perhaps more importantly, humanely—in his telling of the Cobain story. Source: avclub.com

Rock history usually accepts that Grunge started in Seattle with the record label Sub Pop, or at least that Sub Pop was a major player in the growth of the scene. Sub Pop was founded in 1988 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. The first Sub Pop releases included Soundgarden, Mudhoney (whose lead singer, Mark Arm, is credited with first applying the term 'grunge' to his band’s music) and Green River (a forerunner of Pearl Jam). In 1988, Subpop released the first Nirvana album, Bleach, before the band signed to a major label. In 1991, Nirvana signed to the David Geffen Company who initially pressed only 40,000 copies of Nevermind and expected it to be a minor indie success. Instead it sold millions of copies and replaced Michael Jackson at number one on the Billboard charts six weeks after its release, an event that has been given symbolic meaning in terms of the replacement of the ‘old guard’ of music and the arrival of grunge in the mainstream. Overwhelmingly, the main themes of the grunge songs are alienation and depression, but with an ironic sneer–‘just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you,’ Cobain sings on ‘Territorial Pissings’. 

Tolerance of racial differences and support of women were dominant themes in the politics of grunge. Along with this tolerance of difference came a mistrust of authority, and a deep cynicism towards big corporations. By asking questions about equality and wealth within society, issues of power became central to grunge. While some believe grunge lasted until the demise of Soundgarden in 1997, regardless of the exact timing, grunge is generally considered to have been over by the late 1990s. Cobain displayed what Allan Moore (2002) called ‘third person’ authenticity, having been praised for being able to ‘speak the truth of his own culture’. The way that Cobain has often been referred to as the ‘spokesperson for his generation’ is an indicator of this claim. This can be connected to what Weisethaunet and Lindberg (2010) describe as ‘Folkloric Authenticity.’ Edward Larsen (Selling out: Grunge and Globalization) argues that the contradictions contained in grunge reflect the contradictions being experienced in Western capitalist societies at this time. Pearl Jam (with their supposed feud with Nirvana in 1992) were denigrated for a perceived "lack of authenticity" by NME: "Nirvana’s rise was a beautiful, unpremeditated explosion. Geffen expected Nevermind to shift a few thousand units, and it shifts a few million. But Pearl Jam’s meteoric triumph… What you get is solid AOR, circa 1974 – nothing new." 

Seattle was considered the headquarters of the grunge scene. But one revealing article at this time took a critical view of the most successful grunge artists, namely Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins. Their ‘honesty’, previously praised, had become ‘whining’; their newest albums were ‘diaries’ and therefore were ‘not art’; their authenticity was questioned (Sutherland, 1993). A week after Cobain’s death was reported, a Soundgarden live review said: ‘Before the initial shockwaves from Cobain’s death abated, pundits were debating whether the death also symbolised a funeral wreath for the Seattle scene in general’ (Lewis, 1994). Uncut magazine concluded his suicide wasn't abnormal, that ‘it all pointed to a bad end – his family history, his initial free spirit suppressed by Ritalin, leaving him a profoundly disaffected, morbidly weird, that is, not one of us’ (Stubbs, 2004). He was portrayed as a moody ‘artist’: ‘you could be sitting next to him, but he still seemed a million miles away’ (Lamacq, 2004). Cobain's suicide was portrayed as an image of all that was wrong with ‘Generation X’, and was used by the media to try to explain that generation, which they mostly were not a part of.

It has been argued by some academics that since its inception in the early 1990s the Riot Grrrls movement suffered the same fate of commercial incorporation as grunge. The appropriation of the message of Riot Grrrls by ‘mainstream’ performers such as Alanis Morissette took away the original DIY alternative message of the movement. As Schilt (2003) notes: ‘It was a realistic assumption that girls inspired by Bikini Kill would start their own bands. But how realistic was it for girls to aspire to be the next Alanis Morissette?’ In 2004, Spin’s ‘20 Greatest Grunge Albums of All Time’ places Hole (Live Through This) at number 7, L7 (Bricks are Heavy) at number 11 and Babes In Toyland (Spanking Machine) at number 16. One woman from the grunge movement who has not been forgotten is Courtney Love. Some journalists recognized parallels between her and rock’s other infamous widow, Yoko Ono (or even rock’s other destructive blonde stereotype, Nancy Spungen).

Most references to Hole and Courtney Love in the NME were universally flattering. She was hailed as a groundbreaking musician and her strong personality and forceful opinions praised (see Walsh, 1991). But after Cobain's death, a number of bands released songs reportedly aimed at Love – for example, Nine Inch Nail’s ‘Starfuckers Inc’, or Tori Amos’ ‘Professional Widow’ (including the line ‘Starfucker just like my daddy’). As regards the Nine Inch Nails song, this was apparently the result of a sexual encounter between Courtney Love and Trent Reznor. Love’s comeback to Reznor’s subsequent attacks on her was to suggest that ‘Three Inch Nails’ would be a more appropriate name for his band. Douglas Kellner (1998) describes Generation X as excessively exposed to mass media's influence, where ‘life is rendered simply devoid of value, as impoverished social conditions breed anger, apathy and violence’. Brabazon (2005) believes that the most persistent portrayal of Generation X has been ‘as bored, lethargic, over-educated, underemployed sophisticates.’ 

For example, in Serving the servants: An analysis of the music of Kurt Cobain (1995), Duane Fish examines the artistry of Cobain’s work through his lyrics, and concludes that Cobain failed in his attempt to create his own form of art by being absorbed into the corporate mainstream, and that this failure led to his suicide. Sherry Ortner also notes in Generation X: Anthropology in a Media-Saturated World (1998), that members of other ethnic groups did not feel connected to the idea of Generation X. Ortner argues that ‘both the source and the target of the Generation X imagery is the white middle class.’ Ultimately, grunge was colonized and incorporated into the larger field of popular music, but its ‘downfall’ was connected to condemnation from a hypocritical press. The 90s’ (and grunge in particular) were portrayed as a revisiting of 1960s ideals, but in a disillusioned and cynical way that turned the focus onto the self, wary of seeking a societal change. Grunge is not remembered today as something that changed the world because it was never framed by the media in a way that would have allowed this idea to take hold. Its association in the media with an allegedly slack, apathetic Generation X and with the tragic figure of Cobain created a negative context for its ultimate evaluation. —"Grunge: Music and Memory" (2016) by Catherine Strong

Before Elvis: the prehistory of rock 'n' roll

The United States was the most influential economic power in the world after World War II under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Inflation was moderate during the decade of the 1950s. The first few months had a deflationary hangover from the 1940s but the first full year ended with annual inflation rates ranging from 8% to 9%. By 1952 inflation subsided. 1954 and 1955 flirted with deflation again but the remainder of the decade had moderate inflation ranging from 1% to 3.7%. The average annual inflation for the entire decade was only 2.04%. The fifties has been heralded as the decade of a great social comfort and widespread cultural consensus. The fifties was also the decade when rock and roll officially broke out. The interaction of country music with jazz and R&B was especially important in the creation of rock and roll, but though western swing influence—country music’s string-powered response to big-band jazz—has been recently researched, the “hillbilly boogie,” which bridged the gap between western swing and the rockabilly genre, has been virtually ignored.


Hollywood musicals and animated cartoons helped popularize swing, and western films created a national audience for country music. “Blueberry Hill” became a rock classic at the hands of Fats Domino in 1956, but the song, which had been a No. 1 pop hit for Glenn Miller in 1940, was also sung by Gene Autry in 1941, and recorded in 1949 by Louis Armstrong. For the most part, the blues found its way into rock music through jazz, which had long incorporated blues in the early 1920s. With rare exceptions, the Delta blues had little impact on rock ’n’ roll before the British Invasion of the mid-1960s regarded it as influential. During the swing era, big bands such as Count Basie’s, Benny Goodman’s, and Tommy Dorsey’s had picked up the boogie-woogie sound, while blues and country music took on a jazzy feel. The roots of rock run through mainstream pop as well, from Irving Berlin’s vaudeville songs to the Andrews Sisters’ harmonized boogie-woogies, and the R&B-flavored crooning of Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray. The nascent sound of rock ’n’ roll could be heard as early as the 1920s in a number of piano boogies, and jazz-band arrangements.


Before Elvis Presley or Bill Haley had a hit, the pop singer Kay Starr made the Top 20 with her cover version of the Clovers’ 1951 rhythm-and-blues chart-topper “Fool, Fool, Fool.” Before Little Richard turned it into a rock ’n’ roll anthem in 1957, “Keep A Knockin’” was recorded by James Wiggins and by Bert Mays in 1928, by Lil Johnson in 1935, by Milton Brown in 1936, by Louis Jordan and by Jimmy Dorsey in 1939, and by Jimmy Yancey in 1950, among others. Most official rock ’n’ roll timelines begin with the late 1940s or early 1950s. Only a few historians, such as Ed Ward (The History of Rock & Roll: 1920-1963), Geoffrey Stokes (Star-Making Machinery: Inside the Business of Rock and Roll), or Robert Palmer (Rock & Roll: An Unruly History), dare to trace the rock and roll origins as early as the 1930s. Perhaps the best explanation of the origins of rock is still to be found in Charlie Gillett’s The Sound of the City (first published in 1970), one of the only books to recognize the link between big-band swing and rock ’n’ roll. Another writer who has traced some of the various musical strains that found their way into rock ’n’ roll is Nick Tosches (Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n’ Roll: The Birth Of Rock In The Wild Years Before Elvis).

Both Sam Phillips and Marion Keisker heatedly denied Phillips' alleged remark as Albert Goldman quoted it in his 1981 biography of Elvis Presley: “If I could find a white boy who could sing like a nigger, I could make a million dollars.” In 1957, Presley recorded “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” as the flip side of “All Shook Up,” with the Jordanaires adding vocal harmonies. Listening to these earliest Elvis recordings today, it is nearly impossible to understand the apocryphal Sam Phillips quote: the eighteen-year-old Presley does not sound black at all. Peter Guralnick (Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley) compares the voice of Elvis on his early demos to “a sentimental Irish tenor,” adding that “there could have been nothing less overtly African-American-sounding than this particular acetate or this particular song.” Presley evidently aspired to be a country-pop crooner, and though he earned the title King of Rock ’n’ Roll with up-tempo rockers such as “Hound Dog” and “All Shook Up,” he continued to sing and record ballads throughout his career. Published reports that Presley frequented blues clubs on Beale Street in Memphis while still in high school were also debunked by Peter Guralnick.


Presley’s early exposure to live music came mainly through shows by white gospel quartets such as the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen. Radio was Presley’s primary source of musical inspiration, but though he surely tuned in to the pioneering Memphis rhythm-and-blues station WDIA, his repertoire was largely drawn from pop singers such as Teresa Brewer, Jo Stafford, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Eddie Fisher, and Perry Como, as well as country singers such as Hank Williams, Eddie Arnold, and Hank Snow. John Lennon, in his final 1980 interview, told David Sheff that “Rock Around the Clock” had inspired him to pursue a musical career. “I really enjoyed Bill Haley, but I wasn’t overwhelmed by him,” Lennon added. “It wasn’t until ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ that I really got into it.” It was Lennon who is said to have stated, “Before Elvis, there was nothing,” although this widely circulated quotation appears to be apocryphal. By the early 1950s, hillbilly boogies were no longer novel. Boogie-woogie fever had swept America in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Western swing, country music’s fiddle-driven answer to big-band jazz, followed suit. The roots of rock are audible on “Boogie Woogie,” which Count Basie recorded with a small combo in 1936 and with his big band in 1937 (both versions featuring singer Jimmy Rushing), and which Tommy Dorsey recorded as an instrumental in 1938. Boogie-woogie fever peaked with “Beat Me Daddy,” a big hit for the Andrews Sisters in 1940, the same year that Frank Sinatra made his first records with Tommy Dorsey.

Duke Ellington took a more inclusive view in an article for Music Journal in 1962. “Rock ’n’ Roll is the most raucous form of jazz, beyond a doubt,” he wrote. “It maintains a link with the folk origins, and I believe that no other form of jazz has ever been accepted so enthusiastically by so many.” “Lovesick Blues,” a Tin Pan Alley song written by Irving Mills and Cliff Friend, was first recorded in 1922 by the vaudeville singer Elsie Clark. In 1928, Emmett Miller rerecorded “Lovesick Blues” in New York with a group of jazz musicians including trombonist Tommy Dorsey, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, and guitarist Eddie Lang. Rex Griffin’s 1939 cover of Miller’s “Lovesick Blues” is the basis for Hank Williams’s 1949 version, the biggest hit of Williams’s career. According to Peter Guralnick, Elvis Presley “sang quite a few of Kay Starr’s songs” while still in high school, but these were probably ballads. “Fool, Fool, Fool”/“Kay’s Lament” has been overlooked by compilers of the first rock ’n’ roll records, and though the Oklahoma-born Starr was a “white” southerner who scored pop hits mixing rhythm-and-blues in an authentic style before Bill Haley, she has so far escaped consideration as the first rock ’n’ roll singer (as has Anita O’Day). One of Decca’s first post-band recordings was of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters’ version of “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” a country, pop, and R&B hit. “Pistol Packin’ Mama” was covered by artists ranging from the Pied Pipers (a white vocal group featuring Jo Stafford) to the Hurricanes (a black doo-wop group) to Gene Vincent, whose rockabilly rendition, recorded in London, was arranged by Eddie Cochran.

Although Elvis Presley adapted some of his music directly from rhythm-and-blues and claimed that genre as the source of his style, it’s clear from his recording of “Milkcow Blues Boogie” that he was acquainted with western swing, and it’s hardly credible that he was less than familiar with the hillbilly boogie. Bill Haley’s roots in western swing and hillbilly boogie are well documented, and the melody of “Rock Around the Clock,” originally published by the African American bandleader Richard M. Jones, can be heard in a number of 1940s country songs. By the early 1950s, if not sooner, country artists were recording in an idiom recognizable as rockabilly or rock ’n’ roll, terms that would not be used to characterize the genre until a few years later. Swept up in the wave of enthusiasm that accompanied rock ’n’ roll’s breakthrough into the popular mainstream, Haley and Presley were hailed as musical pioneers, but they just were following a well-worn stylistic path. “Rock Around the Clock” was not the first rock and roll song, despite its shuffling rhythm, boogie-ish bass line, and twelve-bar verse-and-refrain structure. Although many 1950s rock songs feature one or more of these characteristics, many do not. Others, such as “Blue Suede Shoes” or “Jailhouse Rock,” have a sixteen-bar verse-and-refrain structure; “Great Balls of Fire” follows the thirty-two bar AABA pattern typical of ballads, complete with bridge.

Upon its emergence, rock ’n’ roll encountered a firestorm of criticism. “From 1958 to 1960 rock and roll lost much of its early drive and impetus, due largely to anti-rock pressures. From 1960 to 1962 rock and roll was toned down,” write Linda Martin and Kerry Segrave in Anti-Rock: Opposition to Rock and Roll. The songwriters headquartered in Manhattan’s Brill Building put their own distinctive stamp, a kind of pop-rock update on Tin Pan Alley, while the surf music of southern California brought guitar instrumentals to the forefront. The demise of rock ’n’ roll has been proclaimed at least since Don McLean’s 1971 hit “American Pie” lamented the passing of Buddy Holly on “the day the music died.” Nevertheless, rock lives on, however feebly, having shown relatively little creative spark since the grunge era. The remaining rock scene splintered into subgenres: power pop, psychobilly, post-punk, grunge, lo-fi, and Americana. Paralleling the development of jazz, rock music has grown so distant from its original sound that modern rock hardly seems to belong to the same genre as vintage rock ’n’ roll. Only the backbeat and amplified guitar-bass-and-drums instrumentation have endured. Rock ’n’ roll showed its greatest verve in the mid-1950s, being revived several times, spiking during the folk-rock and psychedelic rock of the 60s, the 70s glam/punk, the 80s new wave and the 90s grunge/avant-garde. What genuine inventiveness persists is mostly relegated to the fringes of the mainstream scene. Today’s rock musicians seem to have little or no familiarity with old-school rock ’n’ roll—regrettably, since reconnecting with the music’s roots might help restore its vigor. —"Before Elvis: the prehistory of rock 'n' roll" (2013) by Larry Birnbaum

Tom Hanks is in negotiations to play Elvis Presley’s iconic manager Colonel Tom Parker in Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Warner Bros. biopic about the legendary musician. Luhrmann will direct the movie. He also penned the script with Craig Pearce. Parker discovered Presley when he was just an unknown and quickly moved in as his lone representation. Parker was responsible for various milestones, including Presley’s record deal with RCA and his successful acting career. While Luhrmann always envisioned a star for Parker’s part, he wants a newcomer for the role of Elvis Presley. The director has begun meeting with talent for the part. Insiders say a budget is still being ironed out, but Hanks’ commitment will urge the studio to push the project forward. Luhrmann hopes to get the picture into production sometime this year. Source: variety.com

Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly: Alternative Rock Masculinity, The Rock ‘N’ Roll Dream Tour

Our technology is advanced in 2019, but our yearning for yesteryear is stronger than ever. “The Rock ‘N’ Roll Dream Tour” is going to be a joint trek “headlined” by the holograms of music icons Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly. The tour — which features a live band and backing singers, along with remastered audio — will take place in October, running throughout both Europe and North America. Brian Becker, chairman of BASE Hologram, said in a release: “These two men were forward-thinkers who defined the genre of Rock and Roll, from writing to recording to the standard band configuration, and they influenced everyone from Elvis to The Beatles. Now to be able to recapture that magic on a grand scale and let their fans see them together will be something truly special.” “Buddy and Roy were Texans who shared a mutual respect and admiration for each other’s creative musical genius and songwriting abilities,” said Holly’s wife Maria Elena Holly in her press release. “Their long-time fans and a new generation of fans will now have the opportunity to see these great legends perform together in a unique setting, showcasing two of the finest, most influential, and beloved artists in music history.” Source: www.billboard.com

In 1960 rock 'n' roll music was diminished by two watershed events: Elvis Presley's enlistment in the army and Buddy Holly's death. Roy Orbison had close personal ties with both Presley and Holly. When listening to "Only the Lonely," Orbison's first smash hit in 1960, we wondered who sang such a strange song—which sounded more like two songs than one—so beautifully? In 1988, in Newsweek's Orbison obituary, David Gates claimed that, along with Presley and Holly, Orbison "elevated a form of regional music into something approaching art song." Just as it has been important for classical musicians and scholars to understand the accomplishments of Beethoven or Mozart, it is equally important for scholars of popular culture to understand the accomplishments of Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison. Jazz musician Don Byron made a compelling case for collapsing these distinctions between "high" and "low," "art song" and "popular music," and even for erasing the artificial line we draw between classical, pop, and jazz music. We cannot simply assert that rock is a serious art without making an analysis of the accomplishments within the genre. In the 1998 issue of Entertainment Weekly, an article entitled "Orbison's Last Dream" concludes, "In the end it's that goose-bump-inducing voice that endures. Does anyone who's heard it need to ask why Elvis Presley once called Roy Orbison the greatest singer in the world?" Why we shouldn't think of producing a new recording using an old vocal track as equivalent to a theater director's staging a new production of a Shakespeare play? If it is the voice that endures and causes the goosebumps, then why shouldn't that enduring voice be re-played?

"The grain of the voice," in philosopher Roland Barthes's memorable phrase, escapes the language of analysis. It is so much easier to talk about the aesthetics and ideology of lyrics than to characterize the accomplishments of a voice. Listening to Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison is not a form of "slumming," or a case of arrested development; indeed, it is much like listening to Mozart. In 1996 Simon Frith argued in The Sociology of Rock: "There are obvious differences between classical and country or rock music, but that doesn't mean that the artistic processes are different." After leaving Sun Records, Roy Orbison—following the lead of Elvis Presley—signed with RCA, recording six songs produced by Chet Atkins. These songs supply an important link between Orbison's rockabilly period and the later Monument ballads, such as "Paper Boy" which reveals a growing poetic awareness in the lyrics and the inclusion of delicate motifs. Roy Orbison and his first wife Claudette Frady were getting divorced in November 1964 over her infidelities, but they reconciled 10 months later. Tragedy struck on June 6, 1966, however, when Orbison and Claudette were riding home from Bristol, Tennessee. Claudette died in a motorcycle accident that occurred as she rode by Orbison's side, and later two of his three children died in a 1968 fire that destroyed his Nashville home. 

In 1988, Roy Orbison's obituaries confirmed just how widespread and pervasive his tragic image had become. People magazine ran as front-cover headline, "The Haunted Life of Rock Legend Roy Orbison," declaring his death the final tragedy of a quite sad life. Orbison's ubiquitous black clothes and dark glasses, adopted in 1963, only reinforced his image as a dark, tragic figure. Thanks in part to David Lynch, Orbison was later repositioned as a major figure in the history of rock 'n' roll, on a scale close with Elvis Presley and the Beatles. In an article on Orbison's music, occasioned by the release of In Dreams: Greatest Hits (1987), Dave Marsh hailed Roy Orbison as "one of the greatest singers of all time," a view he reiterated after Orbison's death, when he called him "more than just the owner of the greatest white pop voice." Orbison's private world of loneliness and dreams contains an important, pervasive element of sexual masochism that had gone totally unnoticed. Dwight Yoakam described Orbison's voice as that of the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window. In a related vein, Bruce Springsteen, in his 1987 speech inducting Roy Orbison into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, said Orbison had the ability "to sound like he'd dropped in from another planet".

Most rock and roll singers of the period, most convincingly Elvis Presley, strutted around the stage, posturing in a sexually aggressive and overtly macho style. Critics have long pointed out that the display of the male body in rock 'n' roll is feminizing actually, for the male body becomes the object of an erotic spectacle like that traditionally reserved in Western culture for women. In the case of Buddy Holly, he channeled his (hetero) sexual power through his guitar, not displaying his body, so paradoxically Holly—although nerdy and shy—didn't look as feminized as Elvis. Buddy Holly held onto his inner masculinity, avoiding the dictates of rock and roll as erotic assimilation. Roy Orbison was also different from rock's macho performers, and this contrast can be seen in Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1988), a documentary about Chuck Berry, in which we can compare Roy Orbison's scenes with those of Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee, with his trademark cigar and bourbon in hand, talks in typically braggadocio fashion. While Roy Orbison appears in a black leather jacket, in fact totally enshrouded in black. However, he neither looks nor acts tough. 

Peter Watrous wrote in 1988: "Of all the rock-and-roll singers of his generation, Roy Orbison was the least obsessed with masculinity; the music, his voice and words are unmenacing and complex." By not creating and circulating sexually desirable images of himself in fan magazines and on record albums, by minimizing the sexual display of his body in performance and hiding behind impenetrable dark glasses, by singing in an eerie high range—and most of all by writing songs explicitly about male anxiety—Roy Orbison created a significant alternative to the sexual image of traditional male rock stars. In an obituary, the jazz magazine Down Beat claimed that "Elvis Presley said Orbison had the grandest voice in pop music. A listen to 'Only the Lonely,' 'Blue Bayou,' 'Oh, Pretty Woman,' and 'Crying' proves it." Roy Orbison was unique among major rock stars of the time in both his absence from the fan magazines and the de-emphasis on his looks as a major component of his image. Not even he had a press agent, something he would be proud of in later years.

In the rock 'n' roll scene, Buddy Holly also became associated with thick black frames similar to those that Roy Orbison would wear, and pictures show Holly wearing sunglasses indoors. The black frames gave Holly an air of coolness and a quasi intellectual aura. Orbison's dark glasses signified less that he was cool than, hidden behind them, he looked at the world darkly. David Lynch showed the dark, sexual side of the themes of "In Dreams," which he used in his cult film Blue Velvet (1986). Orbison's music not only sprang from loneliness and darkness; it was embraced by the same lonely darkness. Predictably, much of the initial reaction to Blue Velvet centered on its bizarreness. The Arizona Daily Star's critic Bob Campbell changed his mind about the film after he saw it a second time, whereupon he discovered that the film was "fiercely moral, and that explains its stunning force." 

Orbison's vocal range was extraordinary by any standard. "It's Over," for example, moves from D3 to B-flat 5 in full voice! This is an octave plus a fifth, or a thirteen-diatonic-note range in full voice. B-flat 5 is an octave above the full voice of a baritone, a fourth above the full voice of a tenor, and it is beyond the range of the full voice of an alto. Suffice it to say that few performers can do this. "Only the Lonely" has an even greater range. Here Orbison sings from B-flat 3 to C5, the C5 in falsetto. This represents two octaves plus a note, or a total of a seventeen-note range. Evan Eisenberg's analysis of Louis Armstrong located recorded music on a continuum within two poles, with what he calls the "rasp" at one extreme and the "bel canto" at the other. Such singers as Louis Armstrong and Bob Dylan typify the rasp, and singers like Paul McCartney and Roy Orbison typify the bel canto (literally, "beautiful singing"). There is a tendency to see the 'rasp' sound as closer to quintessential rock 'n' roll and the 'bel canto' voice as more closely related to the classical tradition, but the "pretty" voice of Paul McCartney, for example, is also capable of producing a raspy, tortured scream ("Hey Jude"). Dave Marsh breaks Orbison's songs into two groups, those dealing with pain and loss and those dealing with dreaming; Marsh argues that "Orbison's music suggests a way to absorb a very intense pain and stay alive: through dreams." Orbison constructed a complex masochist aesthetic based on a dark, passive, frightened, overly emotional figure, who either reveled in pain or lost himself in a world of dreams. For Orbison, rock 'n' roll was never primarily about sexuality as conventionally constructed and displayed. 

Orbison wrote many of his hits, so he was an early archetype, along with Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, of the singer-songwriter pioneer. "Twinkle Toes" supplies a complex variation on his themes and makes clear how, in addition to dreaming about his role in saving the female figure, the Orbison persona identifies with this woman. The song is about a go-go dancer and the singer sings to her while she dances. The woman is lonely and crying, or at least the singer thinks she is. He describes her as someone whose carefree exterior masks an inner sadness: "Yeah, behind the smile, I know you're crying." Again he offers emotional support, telling her to be tough and hang on. The song concludes with his fantasy of saving her; he tells her to get ready, 'I bet I take you home tonight / now when the dance is through / You wont be lonely, you won't be blue tonight / I'll be with you." In stark contrast to the crudity of the other men we hear shouting, the Orbison persona sensitively identifies with the woman whom he wants to save. He desires her just as strongly as the other men do, but unlike them, he identifies with her loneliness. On March 25, 1969, Orbison married one of his German fans, Barbara Jakobs, whom he had met several days before his sons' deaths. Wesley (born 1965), his youngest son with Claudette, was raised by Orbison's parents. Orbison and Barbara had a son (Roy Kelton) in 1970 and another (Alexander) in 1975.

Buddy Holly's Ting-A-Ling is one of his wildest sounding rock numbers. But the lyrics, although devoid of Orbison's sad melancholy, also help establish a powerful bond with the girl(s) featured in the song. "Well now I'm just a poor young boy/And these girls 'bout to drive me wild/The way they rock and roll and hold me, angel child/The way they laugh, the way they sing/Makes my heart go ting-a-ling/Well, I'm young and I'm free/I want a fine young gal that is so nice and free." Unlike the heroines of traditional country ballads, Peggy Sue is not described in detail in Holly's famous song. As Dave Laing explains, "Peggy Sue is sung in different ways, so as to suggest the infinite variety of his affection for her. If the words suggest the ingenuity of his approach to the girl, the rhythm denotes the determined character of his pursuit for her. For this song, like so many others of Buddy Holly's, he's uncertain that his love will reciprocated." Another beautiful song written by Holly in 1958, “Because I Love You,” suggests the emotional turmoil he went through a painful break-up. In the lyric, Holly expresses his fear that his girlfriend has found someone else and states he would rather die than go through the rest of his life without her.

"Blue Angel" is another important song that showcases Roy Orbison's romantic pulse. It departs from the usual first-person narratives in which he suffers the pain; in this variation, he comforts the woman who has suffered at the hands of another man. At the beginning of the song, he disapprovingly describes the other man as someone who "thought love was a game," assuring the woman that he, by contrast, will "never say goodbye." Yet as the song progresses we discover that the love he sings about is displaced into the future, and there is no indication that the woman has any interest in him, though he offers himself up to her unconditionally, describing the wonderful love they will have: "If you'll just say you're mine / I'll love you 'til the end of time." Again, "She's a Mystery to Me" offers a symbolic physical referent to the masochistic pain that is frequently more psychological in Orbison's music. The song concludes with an intense image of both physical pain and frozen time: "Am I left to burn / And burn eternally." These images of Hell invoke the most extreme an eternal form of that masochistic time that seeks to stop at the moment of greatest suffering. The image of the paralyzed man who wants to run but cannot and instead "melts away" points to the total dissolution of the self that lies at the heart of the masochist aesthetic. If melting away poetically but indirectly means the dissolution of the self, "Windsurfer" expresses clearly the masochist's desire for death. Executives at Virgin Records did not like the song and urged him to use another. "Windsurfer" was included on the Mystery Girl album only at Orbison's insistence.

"Oh, Pretty Woman" is much less about a rose-tinted view of female beauty and the street life than it is about a male form of masochistic desire. At the climax of "Oh, Pretty Woman," the masochistic sense of timing finds formal expression when the Orbison persona cries out, "But wait, what do I see?" The opening guitar riff, itself structured around a disruption of time, is repeated, freezing time as the Orbison persona passively waits to see what action the desired woman will take. Bob Dylan had long admired Orbison and had written "Don't Think Twice" for him, recording the song himself in 1963 only after Orbison decided not to record it. Most people think of Roy Orbison as just the smooth crooner who sang ballads like “Only the Lonely” and “Crying.” But Orbison was also a wicked guitar player, who ripped out several impressive solos with his iconic Gibson ES-335 guitar on early Sun Records singles like “Ooby Dooby.” By 1964, most of Orbison’s early rock and roll contemporaries were either dead, strung-out on drugs, or in jail, but Orbison’s musical career still hadn’t reached its peak. In between the ballads, he recorded singles like “Mean Woman Blues” (check his wild guitar solo) and “Oh, Pretty Woman” that showed upstarts like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Animals that Americans still could rock harder than any British band.

Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly opened rock 'n' roll to a wide range of emotions and intensity for other artists, far removed from the dominant macho posturing of the time. There were, to be sure, some elements of vulnerability in Elvis and others, but nothing comparable to Holly or Orbison. Buddy Holly had helped Roy Orbison with lead guitar structures on some of the songs Orbison was trying to write in the late 50s. When Orbison, from Wink, Texas, 125 miles south of Lubbock, heard Holly on KDAV, it certainly altered his life. It was Buddy Holly who showed Roy Orbison the guitar lick that would become so popular when Orbison recorded “Pretty Woman” in 1964. Buddy Holly’s detractors had been mostly mediocre C&W pickers who envied his talent, but they had a shattering effect on his self-esteem. And Holly began to withdraw from the crowd, turning inward. Despite his standoffishness, Buddy’s smart-aleck persona reasserted itself anytime he felt secure, especially when he was with other musicians, or a girl he liked. As a songwriter, Buddy Holly favored Major chords, as well as Brian Wilson (the favorite keys of Holly were A, E and D, whereas Wilson preferred to write in key B). Brian Wilson was another creative and sensitive pop genius who had no time for macho posturing ("I think cursing is a bunch of malarkey", Wilson once said). When he released his album No Pier Pressure in 2015, Brian Wilson explained: "The songs come to me sitting at a piano and out of the sudden, they come down from my brain and onto the keyboard."  


“I don’t want to be rich,” Buddy Holly had said to Sonny Curtis: “I don’t even want to be in the limelight. But I want people to remember the name Buddy Holley.” Buddy Holly had the kind of determination known only to heroes and fools. In profile, he looked strangely Martian, but when he faced the camera he was quite handsome, with a big, heroic forehead, gull-wing eyebrows, a squared-off chin, and a strong jaw-line. The rock ballad “I Guess I Was Just a Fool” was the first sign of Buddy Holly exploring deeper emotional states with insight and depth. It tells the story of a man who has lost a relationship but he's glad to know he’s at least capable of experiencing love. Buddy seems to be drawing on his ill-starred love for the wild girl of Lubbock. In the plaintive Mystery Girl Orbison admits freely "There are stronger men than me." Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly had the courage to be different as singers, songwriters and performers at a crucial moment in the evolution of rock 'n' roll. There are no stronger or more inspiring men than that. —Sources: "Roy Orbison: Invention Of An Alternative Rock Masculinity" (2003) by Peter Lehman and "This'll Be the Day: The Life and Legacy of Buddy Holly" (2009) by Maury Dean

Buddy Holly: three chords and the truth

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