BUDDY HOLLY: THAT'LL BE THE DAY (1958)
1) You Are My One Desire; 2)
Blue Days, Black Nights; 3) Modern Don Juan; 4) Rock Around With Ollie Vee; 5)
Ting A Ling; 6) Girl On My Mind; 7) That'll Be The Day; 8) Love Me; 9) Changing
All Those Changes; 10) Don't Come Back Knockin'; 11) Midnight Shift.
Technically, this album should have been listed
as Buddy's first: all of the songs here are taken from his first recording
sessions for Decca, held at various dates throughout 1956, approximately one
year prior to finding success with Brunswick. The story goes that, since
Buddy's first singles with Decca flopped and the label was not quite sure what
to make of him, they simply did not renew his contract — but as time went by
and he eventually started treading the road to stardom, all these early tunes,
including all the flop singles as well as a number of outtakes, were hastily
cobbled together for an LP; easily done since Decca still held the rights to
all of them.
In retrospect, the Decca decision was just another
silly Decca decision, for which the label is so well-known — but, to be
perfectly honest, these earliest recordings are
rather suspicious. First and foremost, Side A is almost entirely devoid of
originals. Three of the songs are credited to Don Guess, Buddy's buddy and original
bass fiddle player, and are little more than average doo-wop (ʽGirl On My
Mindʼ) or second-hand rockabilly (ʽModern Don Juanʼ). Much better and gutsier
is ʽRock Around With Ollie Veeʼ, credited to Buddy's original lead guitarist
Sonny Curtis — the players get into this one with an almost unexpected ferocity,
although flat production and Buddy's vocal limitations remain inescapable
curses in this style.
Following Elvis' love for old and recent
Atlantic hits, Buddy, too, tried to follow suit by choosing The Clovers' ʽTing-A-Lingʼ,
one of the greatest odes to teenage libido of its time, and this time, he even
managed well enough to slip into character, with a suitably hysterical vocal
tone, but here as well, the attempt to transform professionally synthesized
R&B into snappy rockabilly is altogether half-hearted — neither the
musicians nor the technicians were quite up to the task.
The second half of the album is dominated by
the title track, which is the original
recording of ʽThat'll Be The Dayʼ — slower, looser, without vocal harmonies,
operating at about half the potential of the re-recorded version and very well
illustrating the difference between early tentative Buddy and later, more
self-assured and goal-oriented Buddy. The originals that surround it are decent
(the B-side ʽLove Meʼ and ʽChanging All Those Changesʼ in particular), but
still do not advance far beyond standard rockabilly or sped-up country-western.
In other words, one would have to be really
mean to blame Decca for not spotting the future genius of ʽPeggy Sueʼ or ʽWords
Of Loveʼ in these cautious first moves at playing with one's own artistic
identity — and, considering that Buddy got his new contract with Brunswick,
which was legally under Decca anyway, the industry bosses cannot be said to
have treated the boy too cruelly. It does, however, show that Buddy's
beginnings were humble; he seems to have had limited aspirations as a
songwriter, being quite content with sharing songwriting duties with his fellow
bandmates, and only gradually came to realise where his major strength resided.
To that end, That'll Be The Day is
more of a historical document than a «success» or «failure», and it is also an
early precursor to the dark tendency of stuffing way more Buddy Holly down our
throats than it would be useful for his posthumous reputation — but, on the
other hand, at least these are authentic studio recordings that properly bear
the artist's signature: since the album was released while Buddy was still
alive, nobody had the nerve to tamper with the tracks.
Now, to be fair, in the 50s the UK Decca and the US Decca were two different companies (which is why UK Decca recordings were released in America under London Records). In any case, Decca's place in history will be forever granted by the classical music division.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decca_Records
To add to the confusion, apparently there was a time when RCA recordings in the UK were distributed by Decca, but of course without the dog-and-gramophone picture, which in the UK belonged to EMI. A mess.