BUDDY HOLLY: BUDDY HOLLY (1958)
1) I'm Gonna Love You Too; 2)
Peggy Sue; 3) Look At Me; 4) Listen To Me; 5) Valley Of Tears; 6) Ready Teddy;
7) Every Day; 8) Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues; 9) Words Of Love; 10) (You're
So Square) Baby I Don't Care; 11) Rave On; 12) Little Baby.
It so happened that, as little time as he had
on this Earth, Buddy had enough of it for two formal careers — as the
semi-anonymous leader of «The Crickets» and as a solo artist. The only real difference,
however, was that «The Crickets» worked together with «The Picks» and had this
rather dippy tendency to drift off into doo-wop territory. Consequently, of the
two full-fledged LPs released by Buddy in his lifetime, the self-titled Buddy
Holly is, on the whole, a better showcase for his songwriting talents and
personal charisma — even if, as all pop LPs of the time, it neither succeeds in
being totally filler-free, nor even tries to.
To be more precise, the inclusion of ʽReady
Teddyʼ and ʽBaby I Don't Careʼ, two songs typically associated with Elvis (and
Little Richard), has more of a symbolic nature to it — Buddy openly aligning
himself with the «rockers» — than actual entertainment value: Buddy is not
capable of outplaying the king and his backing band on the
toughness-and-tightness field, nor is he trying to open up some new dimension
in these songs (one could argue that they are way too proverbially
one-dimensional to be openable up to anything else, but that is not true —
Lennon, for instance, would later reinvent ʽReady Teddyʼ quite radically, if
not, some would say, for the better). Same goes for Fats Domino's ʽValley Of
Tearsʼ, which should really have been left to Fats; Buddy Holly and New Orleans
were not meant for each other.
But I will take rock'n'roll filler over doo-wop
filler any day, particularly if the filler in question is interspersed with the
single largest number of indisputable original classics on a Buddy album.
ʽPeggy Sueʼ, ʽI'm Gonna Love You Tooʼ, ʽWords Of Loveʼ, ʽRave Onʼ, ʽEvery Dayʼ
— each of these is practically an instution in itself, at least if we judge
objectively, on the basis of received accolades and tributary covers. As simple
and natural as these melodies sound, most of them were actually written by Buddy — on a pre-existing basis of blues, folk,
and country chord sequences, but with his own unique input that increased the
catchiness value several dozen per cent.
ʽPeggy Sueʼ, in particular, had a strange kind
of magic to it that won the hearts of both
Lennon and McCartney — and it would be sad to think that it only had to do with
the insane paradiddles of Jerry Allison, because the song works fine even
without its percussive thunderstorm (look for a charming McCartney solo acoustic
performance from 1975); actually, the vocal melody, replete with all the
hiccups, pretty much sets the standard for «not-one-note-wasted catchy pop
formula», and must have served as the guiding star for the Beatles throughout
their career, and I am not talking solely about the early days, either. The
lyrics, the subject, the mood — trivial to quasi-embarrassment; the vocal movement
is all that matters. (There is even a bit of playfully fake «darkness» as the
bridge cuts in with an almost threatening «pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy
Sue...» before the sun comes out again — a musical red herring if there ever
was one, within a two-minute pop song, that is).
Instrumental-wise, ʽWords Of Loveʼ is the
winner, although I must sternly state that the song was brought to sonic
perfection by the Beatles and George Martin — they saw the amazing potential of
that sweetly-stinging guitar ring, only hinted at in Petty's original
production, and realized all of it; I am almost sure that Buddy himself, had he
had the chance, would have acknowledged the superiority of Harrison's playing
and Martin's production. Nevertheless, this here is the original, and even if
the vocal melody may seem too sappy, the guitar lines provide the very
foundation of the «jangle-pop» skyscraper, to be erected by millions of Buddy's
followers. This here was a man who was taking the art of sweet sentimental
balladry away from professional hacks, armed with orchestras and crooning
vocalists, and giving it to legions of kids with guitars, almost singlehandedly.
Some of those kids would do it better; few, if any, would do it before.
Next to these two, Buddy's more
rock'n'roll-oriented originals look a bit more pale, but still, ʽRave Onʼ and
ʽI'm Gonna Love You Tooʼ combine the pop catchiness with a fast rock beat so
well that both (especially the latter) could be considered as the blueprint for
the Ramones' entirely career (well, almost) — dumb, catchy, unbeatable,
unforgettable. In chronological terms, though, they represent no major
improvements over ʽOh Boyʼ or ʽMaybe Babyʼ, and, generally, it was quite clear
from this second album that crude «rock'n'roll» was not something that Buddy
would be looking to in the future, saving his best songwriting ideas for
calmer, less rowdy stuff. And, of course, as long as those would be smart ideas, there was nothing wrong
with that. Filler or no filler, Buddy
Holly is an unquestionable thumbs up — and plus, if you get the original
album, you get to see the man without
the glasses for a change, and whaddaya know, he does not look any less pretty
nor any less intelligent, even though he could probably hardly see the camera
when they were clicking that shutter...
I agree with you that this is a huge improvement over his debut, but I actually consider "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" as a highlight, at least in the sense that Buddy's «nerdy» vocals are ironic in this condemnation of his girl's «squareness».
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