He'd made his first public appearance at age five, when, clutching his toy violin, he tagged along with his brothers to a local talent show, and wound up walking off with a five dollar prize for an impromptu version of "Down the River of Memories".
Buddy grew up surrounded by music from both within and without: His mother sang duets with her twin sister, his brothers Larry and Travis each played several instruments, and radio stations from Texas, Louisiana and nearby New Mexico brought everything from western swing and honky tonk to blues and rhythm 'n' blues into his musical consciousness. By all accounts, Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holley – born September 7, 1936, the youngest of Lawrence and Ella Holley's four children – had been performing, with style, as far back as anyone could remember. “Don’t change his style at all.” Those were the prophetic instructions of Nashville talent agent Eddie Crandall in a December 1955 telegram to Dave Stone, owner of radio station KDAV in Lubbock, Texas, asking that Stone arrange for the then-nineteen-year-old Buddy Holly to cut some original demos so that Crandall could try and get the young singer a recording contract. Legendary music by a legendary artist - that's what pulsates through every track of The Buddy Holly Collection. But while other frozen-in-time icons of the era, such as Marilyn Monroe or James Dean, might be best remembered for some well-defined image or overall attitude, what becomes this legend most is his remarkable body of work - a collection of songs and performances which, while more than meaningless, momentary teen diversion, has transcended all barometers of time and significance. In the years since his death in February 1959 at the age of twenty-two, he's been the subject of statues, biographies, conventions, even a Hollywood movie. And he was the tragic young victim of a late night, wintry plane crash who became, in death, not only an everlasting symbol of his times, but, as well, an immortal figure of American popular culture.Īnd make no mistake about it, Buddy Holly most certainly a legend.
He was the carefree superstar who so perfectly personified his country's exuberant, hopeful spirit that he helped inspire a generation of musicians an ocean away to take up arms and start their own revolution.
He was a singularly gifted singer, songwriter and guitarist who took the diverse musical strands that fueled his imagination and weaved from them a quintessentially singular new cloth. He was the archetypal 1950's youth whose passions were stirred by the rock 'n' roll revolution, and who, in the twinkle of a bespectacled eye, rose in rank from foot-soldiering follower to influential leader of that revolution. Buddy Holly's all-too-brief life was, indeed, the stuff of which legends are made.
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