Along the Texas Panhandle, teenage memories rekindled (From Watford Observer)

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Along the Texas Panhandle, teenage memories rekindled

1:30pm Thursday 2nd February 2012

By Oliver Phillips »

IT is popularly known as The Day The Music Died: February 3 1959 and I can remember it as if it were yesterday. As a teenager, I felt we had lost something unique with the passing of Buddy Holly, by far he most innovative of all the first generation rockers.

Indeed it is generally considered he, above all the original rockers, would have felt inspired and embraced the experimental explosion of music in the 1960s.

I loved Dion, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Dire Straits, The Cars, Chris Rea and a whole bunch of other and subsequent rock and pop artists but no one had touched my mortal soul, as the song goes, quite like the man from Lubbock, Texas.

So it was something of a personal pilgrimage as we drove down Crickets Avenue and into Buddy Holly Boulevard in Lubbock, Texas, recently - some 53 years after that fateful day.

My wife, Ellie, was almost as enthusiastic: Peggy Sue on a Coral 45, was the first record she bought, at the age of 10.

Buddy Holly was all but ignored by his home city in his lifetime. Lubbock had more churches per capita than any other city in the US in the 1950’s so the “devil’s music” was shunned, and when photographed playing at a local hop, their faces were blanked out in the local paper.

Now they have a statue, a museum centre and roads named after him.

I could write forever on 22-year-old Buddy, his 18- month career, the fact he had six records in the British top 30 in one week in 1958 – unrivalled except by The Beatles; the fact he was a singer, songwriter, arranger, producer and even formed his own record label all inside 18 months; had signed his first unknown to the label to launch his career (called Waylon Jennings) and to my mind and those of many others was the Father of British rock.

I will just add a few quotes from those in a better position to judge. I will leave out the likes of Clapton, Page, Graham Nash and company in their praise of Buddy and just reproduce some of the quotes on the museum wall: “I was Buddy Holly” - John Lennon. “Our first record was That’ll be the day” – Paul MacCartney, who owns the entire copyright of Holly’s material. ‘We named our group after the Crickets”.

”Buddy Holly was way ahead of his time” – Bob Dylan.

“He proved you did not have to be a matinee idol to be a star. I started wearing glasses like his at school even though I did not need them. Suddenly I was cool. They ruined my eyesight however and now I have to wear glasses” –Elton John.

“Lead, rhythm guitar, bass, drums. They all do that now. The music did not die with Buddy, it started” – Dion.

“Buddy Holly was the start of it all” – Keith Richards. “Every time rock is played, you can hear there is a little of Buddy in there.”

“I play Buddy Holly before every concert. It keeps me honest” – Bruce Springstein.

The exhibition was good and the film was informative although, being a bit of an anorak (no, to be honest, a complete anorak) on the subject, there was nothing I did not know.

We travelled up to the grave and spent a few moments there (his parents are buried either side), saw his house where he lived when he hit number one. Then Ellie bought a lipstick at Walmart, which, with sensitivity, was built on the site of his birthplace.

The lady serving us, at the exhibition, told us Waylon Jennings was the prime mover for the statue and that a significant number of visitors are from England.

“I think he was actually bigger over there than here,” she said, That was true for a few decades but, for the record, Buddy was ranked 13th greatest-ever singer in the latest exhaustive American Rolling Stone poll of world music critics and musicians.

If we had stayed at Lubbock for another 36 hours, I could have talked to the real Peggy Sue, at the local radio station. I would have had to go along and meet her, but we were heading up towards Santa Fe by then.

It is good that she keeps the flame burning, as opposed to the “widowed bride” who left Lubbock when the funeral started, and did not attend it, in order to get to see her lawyers, and has since charged the earth for his home-town to use her husband’s name.

Peggy Sue, who married and divorced Crickets drummer Jerry Allison, revealed in her book that the impulsive Holly marriage was in fact on the rocks. She never got sued.

The next day we drove the 100 miles up to Clovis, New Mexico, where Buddy recorded all his hits. The studios remain and are still used professionally.

We listened to his cds en route to Lubbock and Clovis, probably the first time we have listened to them with such concentration for some years –the Texas Panhandle is not the most interesting countryside - and it struck us once again how good he was. They brought it all back.

So much so that it helped me overcome my only problem, which was with the visitors’ book. After completing the exhibition I found myself lost for words.

Eventually, I decided to set aside the inhibitions and write honestly as I felt 52 years later. Nothing has changed from teenage years to manhood.

“I still miss him.”

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