BUDDY HOLLY: DOWN THE LINE (1948-1959/2009)
CD I: 1) My Two-Timin' Woman;
2) Footprints In The Snow; 3) Flower Of My Heart; 4) Door To My Heart; 5)
Soft Place In My Heart; 6) Gotta Get You Near Me Blues; 7) I Gambled My Heart;
8) You And I Are Through; 9) Down The Line; 10) Baby, Let's Play House; 11)
Moonlight Baby (Baby, Won't You Come Out Tonight); 12) I Guess I Was Just A
Fool; 13) Don't Come Back Knockin'; 14) Love Me; 15) Gone; 16) Gone [alternate take];
17) Have You Ever Been Lonely [alternate take]; 18) Have You Ever Been Lonely;
19) Brown-Eyed Handsome Man; 20) Good Rockin' Tonight; 21) Rip It Up; 22) Blue
Monday; 23) Honky Tonk; 24) Blue Suede Shoes; 25) Shake Rattle and Roll [partial];
26) Bo Diddley; 27) Ain't Got No Home; 28) Holly Hop.
CD
II: 1) Last Night [undubbed]; 2) Not Fade Away [partial alternate overdub]; 3)
Peggy Sue [alternate take]; 4) Oh Boy! [undubbed]; 5) That's My Desire; 6) Take
Your Time; 7) Fool's Paradise [alternate take]; 8) Fool's Paradise [undubbed master];
9) Fool's Paradise [alternate #2 undubbed]; 10) Think It Over [take 1]; 11)
Think It Over [take 2]; 12) Think It Over [take 3]; 13) Love's Made A Fool Of
You [undubbed]; 14) That'll Be The Day (Greetings To Bob Thiele); 15) That'll
Be The Day (Greetings To Murray Deutsch); 16) That's What They Say (With
Fragment); 17) What To Do; 18) Peggy Sue Got Married; 19) That Makes It Tough;
20) Crying, Waiting, Hoping; 21) Learning The Game; 22) Wait Till The Sun
Shines Nellie; 23) Slippin' And Slidin' [slow version #1]; 24) Slippin' And
Slidin' [slow version #2]; 25) Slippin' And Slidin' [fast version]; 26) Buddy
& Maria Elena Talking In Apartment (Dialogue); 27) Dearest [fragment]; 28)
Dearest; 29) Untitled Instrumental; 30) Love Is Strange; 31) Smokey Joe's Café.
While this package is not completely-thoroughly
exhaustive, as any serious Holly fan will tell you, it contains everything and
much more than the «average Joe», interested in taking a serious glance at
Buddy's underwater part of the iceberg, would ever want to hear. In fact,
everybody's best bet at a comprehensive Buddy-shrine would probably be to own
one of the larger, multi-disc collections of «official» stuff, and this
double-CD package of rarities (many of them officially released for the first
time here) as a supporting companion.
All the tracks are arranged here in strict
chronological order — to such an extent that Disc 1 is properly «The Formative
Years» and Disc 2 is «The Blossom Years» (just two of them, really, from early
1957 to early 1959). Sound quality ranges from unlistenable, especially on the
earliest recordings, to decent on the later ones, but most importantly,
everything is undubbed — including «The Apartment Demos», which, up until
2009, could only be heard in their original form with the aid of your local friendly
bootlegger. Not that a song like ʽCrying, Waiting, Hopingʼ is really supposed
to be so very much better in its demo form than in the studio-completed
Crickets arrangement (with «echo» vocals and everything) — but it goes without
saying that one should have free access to the original artist version as well.
The first disc is interesting mostly in «journey»
terms. The first track is a home recording of a 12-year old Buddy playing
guitar and singing Hank Snow's ʽMy Two-Timin' Womanʼ — the voice not yet
broken, a delightful kiddie soprano that duly disappears five years later on
the second track, ʽFootprints In The Snowʼ. Recording quality for these home
tapes is abysmal, but it's a miracle they exist at all — apparently, Buddy
borrowed a wire recorder from a friend who worked in a music shop for the Hank
Snow cover, and the results managed to survive.
Later on, several tracks document the «Buddy
& Bob» duo — a bunch of country and bluegrass tunes that, as a rule, are
rather facelessly played, sung, and recorded, but hardly «bad» for high school
entertainment level (it seems that most of them were self-penned as well,
scoring them additional points for derivative creativity). The transition
occurs by the time they reach the last of these: ʽDown The Lineʼ, which gives
the name to the entire compilation, is where they make the definitive move from
country-western to rockabilly aesthetics (odd as it is, the song has nothing to
do with Roy Orbison's own ʽDown The Lineʼ, which would only be released one
year later, in 1956 rather than June 1955). No wonder — Elvis had just left the
building.
From there onwards, the rest of Disc 1 mostly
consists of Buddy hitting on everyone: Elvis, Chuck, Little Richard, Bo
Diddley, etc., gradually groping for his own style, but certainly not finding
it all at once — he even goes as far as to cover Clarence "Frogman"
Henry's ʽAin't Got No Homeʼ, despite having no qualification whatsoever to
match the Frogman's vocal «talents», but it's actually a good thing, since no
one would probably want to see Holly stuck in the role of a voice clown,
mimicking little girls and lonely frogs all his life.
As Disc 2 rolls along, we finally emerge from
the stage of «intriguing historical document» and get rewarded by demos, alternate
versions, and rehearsal takes of the real classic stuff. Some of these are a
bit of an overkill, e. g. three consecutive versions of ʽThink It Overʼ — a
classic number all right, but not exactly a ʽStrawberry Fields Foreverʼ for us
to be so much interested in the slowly
unfurling story of its creation. But the acoustic «Apartment Demos», without
any echo effects on Buddy's voice or electric rhythm parts obscuring the man's
original melodies, are quite a treasure — the only thing I am not sure about is
the inclusion of three and a half minutes of conversation between Buddy and his
wife in the same apartment, which I tend to skip because it makes you feel
uneasy, like spying on the man's underwear. Studio chatter during work hours is
one thing, but this here is kinda personal. (Besides, Maria Elena's croaky
Puerto Rican laughter is only marginally more irritating than Buddy's Texan
guffaw, if you'll excuse me for these slurry particularities). Additionally,
there is a fast version of ʽSlippin'
and Slidin'ʼ here, showing that Buddy probably gave up on the bad idea of
slowing down the song before forgetting about it altogether; an undubbed ʽLove
Is Strangeʼ, notorious for having once served as Buddy's last «original» minor
chart entry as late as 1969; and even a cover of ʽSmokey Joe's Caféʼ,
showcasing the man's interest in the comical (Robins/Coasters) side of Atlantic
R&B — or maybe just in the songwriting talents of Leiber & Stoller.
All in all, for «historical and cultural
significance», this package gets a natural thumbs up, but do keep in mind that its
«entertainment value» is limited — I seriously doubt that anybody would want to
listen to the first disc more than once, and the «golden core» of the second
disc altogether takes up about twenty minutes, not more: the rest is all
alternate takes, false starts, jingles, and oddities. On the other hand,
considering that Buddy's artistic evolution was arguably one of the most
interesting musical stories of the early rock'n'roll movement, there is hardly
another Fifties' rock'n'roller of the same caliber that would be more deserving
of such an intelligently assembled package. And, come to think of it, was there
another Fifties' rock'n'roller that had the luck to be captured on tape at the
tender age of twelve?
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