Buddy Holly: Down The Line

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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Buddy Holly: Showcase

BUDDY HOLLY: SHOWCASE (1964)

1) Shake, Rattle And Roll; 2) Rock Around With Ollie Vee; 3) Honky Tonk; 4) I Guess I Was Just A Fool; 5) Umm, Oh Yeah; 6) You're The One; 7) Blue Suede Shoes; 8) Come Back Baby; 9) Rip It Up; 10) Love's Made A Fool Of You; 11) Gone; 12) Girl On My Mind.

Just one more of these and we're done. Showcase followed fairly quickly after Reminiscing, since the latter sold poorly, but steadily, and was even more of a pathetic cash-in — this time, the buying public had learned its lesson and remained completely unimpressed, not to mention that, by May 1964, Beatlemania was on in full force, and the kids had plenty of stuff to worry about other than a bunch of decade-old outtakes, crudely overdubbed and revealing nothing particularly new about the artist. Not even a King Curtis duet this time around.

Instead, what we get is mostly songs from the same early 1956 Nashville sessions that yielded the relatively lackluster That'll Be The Day LP (in fact, two of the songs, ʽRock Around With Ollie Veeʼ and ʽGirl On My Mindʼ, seem to have simply been carried over from that album, maybe in slightly remixed form). As usual, half-finished outtakes and demos rule the day, and, as usual, my beef is not so much with the «sacrilegious» overdubs as it is with most of the songs being just plain uninteresting.

There is quite a fair share of Holly originals here, to be sure, but they reflect the earliest and most derivative period of Buddy as a songwriter, and, for the most part, we either hear pedes­trian country-western (ʽI Guess I Was Just A Foolʼ), or half-developed predecessors of better songs: ʽLove's Made A Fool Of Youʼ already tries to spice up the country-western flavor by borrowing the Bo Diddley beat, soon to take full shape in the form of ʽNot Fade Awayʼ, and ʽYou're The Oneʼ, left here in its original acoustic demo incarnation, sows the seeds of ʽPeggy Sueʼ and seve­ral other classics. Consequently, they do have historical value, but if we are talking historical value rather than pure entertainment, why all the overdubs?

As for the covers, there is even less to add to what has been said before: no matter how many Buddy versions of classic non-Buddy rock'n'roll hits get added to the catalog, there is simply no way they can add anything to the originals. In some difficult, incomprehensible way it may be «fun» to hear how Buddy does ʽShake, Rattle & Rollʼ or ʽBlue Suede Shoesʼ, just to rest assured how deeply integrated he always was with the fearless rockabilly crowd, but that's about it.

The finalized album predictably gets another thumbs down. Throughout the 1960s, Petty would then continue squeezing out «bastardized» releases (such as Holly In The Hills from 1965 and Giant from as late as 1969), but they get progressively more difficult to find on CD and, in any case, have become formally obsolete now that most of the original, undubbed, tapes have been officially released on various compilations of rarities, so we shall spare ourselves the hassle of promoting Petty's questionable understanding of musical ethics and just move on.

Buddy Holly: Reminiscing

BUDDY HOLLY: REMINISCING (1963)

1) Reminiscing; 2) Slippin' And Slidin'; 3) Bo Diddley; 4) Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie; 5) Baby, Won't You Come Out Tonight; 6) Brown Eyed Handsome Man; 7) Because I Love You; 8) It's Not My Fault; 9) I'm Gonna Set My Foot Down; 10) Changing All Those Changes; 11) Rock-A-Bye-Rock.

I do not know why it took Norman Petty almost three years to realize the benefits that could be gained from continuing to milk Buddy's archives. However, since Reminiscing came out in Feb­ruary '63, it certainly was not tied in to the British Invasion, which had not yet begun, and could not have caused additional interest in the dead man behind it all. More likely, it was caused by a growing deficit in Petty's own pockets.

In any case, neither this particular record, nor any of its three or four follow-ups, released through the 1960s, have any reason to exist these days, what with all of Buddy's undubbed demos, out­takes, rehearsals etc. now legally available on various boxsets and rarities collections. But just for the sake of history, and also for the sake of letting you know that these overdubbed recordings were never quite as terrible as devoted fans often proclaim them to be, I suppose that a word or two is in order at least about the first few of these mutants.

So, the story as it stands: Reminiscing is a set of eleven Holly / Crickets tunes, originally re­corded from 1956 to 1958, then left in the can until 1962, when Petty hired the Fireballs, a now-forgotten but then-modestly-popular rockabilly band, to bring the tapes to completion. Unlike «The Apartment Tapes», which were just Buddy and his acoustic, these songs, however, ranged from acoustic demos to semi-completed tracks that already had the Crickets playing on them, so Petty basically had one band play on top of the other every now and then — no wonder the sound is, mildly speaking, a bit messy in places.

That said, the Fireballs were a bona fide rock band like any other, and, at the very least, these overdubs make sense. The main problem of Reminiscing is not the tampering — it is the lack of high quality material. For sure, Buddy was a prolific recorder, but he wasn't that good of a song­writer to strike out a new great tune every day. After the «Apartment Tunes» had all made their appearance, in one form or another, on Story, the majority of what was left in the vaults turned out to be covers of other people's stuff — and given that Buddy's covers of other people on his regular LPs were rarely the focus of attention, what could one expect to find at the bottom of the barrel? I wouldn't go as far as to say that Petty was doing Buddy a huge reputational disservice, but there is not a single song here that could count as a lost gem (okay, maybe one).

About half of the tracks are well-known standards by Buddy's rock'n'roller competitors or imita­tions of these competitors (ʽI'm Gonna Set My Foot Downʼ is a transparent copy of Roy Orbi­son's ʽOoby Doobyʼ with a little bit of ʽEverybody's Trying To Be My Baby / Blue Suede Shoesʼ thrown in for good measure). Sometimes the arrangements are drastically experimental, but not to a reasonable effect — the attempt to reinvent Little Richard's ʽSlippin' And Slidin'ʼ as a slow «shuffle», with heavy emphasis on voice modulation, is sort of weird for weirdness sake, and was, I believe, rightfully abandoned by the artist because the song ceased to make sense. Elsewhere, we have Buddy trying on the shoes of Bo Diddley (ʽBo Diddleyʼ) and Chuck Berry (ʽBrown Eyed Handsome Manʼ) — decent homages, but completely unnecessary.

That one song which could qualify for posterity gave the album itself its title: a leftover from a session where Buddy was backed by sax master King Curtis. Although ʽReminiscingʼ is formally credited to the sax guy, it is reported that Buddy was the author, and that he handed the credit over to Curtis in acknowledgement of the man agreeing to play for him. Not that the composition is particularly original, but the Buddy/Curtis combination is, and it kind of makes one sad that the same combination was not tried out on some of Buddy's better songs.

Of the other originals, ʽBecause I Love Youʼ is a bit too draggy, monotonous, and simplistic to influence me with its tenderness, and the rest is rather generic rockabilly that might or might not date back to Buddy's earliest, not particularly adventurous sessions — all in all, if you were truly «reminiscing» about the man back in 1963, just hearing his voice on yet another bunch of tunes must have been an extraordinary experience, but now that it's all one for the newer generations, Reminiscing is understandably easier associated with Petty's pettiness than with Holly's holiness, if you get my drift. Therefore, a thumbs down here, even if the title track is well worth a spin or two in the playlist of your choice.

Buddy Holly: The Buddy Holly Story, Vols. 1-2

THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, VOLS. 1-2 (1959/1960)

Vol. I: 1) Raining In My Heart; 2) Early In The Morning; 3) Peggy Sue; 4) Maybe Baby; 5) Everyday; 6) Rave On; 7) That'll Be The Day; 8) Heartbeat; 9) Think It Over; 10) Oh Boy; 11) It's So Easy; 12) It Doesn't Matter Any­more.

Vol. II: 1) Peggy Sue Got Married; 2) Well... All Right; 3) What To Do; 4) That Makes It Tough; 5) Now We're One; 6) Take Your Time; 7) Crying, Waiting, Hoping; 8) True Love Ways; 9) Learning The Game; 10) Little Baby; 11) Moondreams; 12) That's What They Say.

As every respectable conspirologist is aware of, or should be aware of, if he is in need of respec­ta­bility, what happened on February 3, 1959, was that Roger Arthur Peterson, piloting the Beech­craft Bonanza N3794N, was discreetly bribed by one Paul McCartney, a suspicious (but hand­some)-looking British teenager seriously envious of the songwriting abilities and competing good looks of Buddy Holly, to crashland the Bonanza in some swamp, ravine, or cornfield, an opera­tion carried out successfully, although, to this very day, no one knows why the pilot never thought of his own survival, or where Paul McCartney got the money. But at least this is a more fun conspiracy to think of than blaming the FBI / CIA, as usual. (Those, of course, were too busy anyway setting Chuck Berry up with an underage waitress at the moment).

Whatever the circumstances, the bad news were that Buddy (along with Ritchie Valens of ʽLa Bambaʼ's fame and J. P. Richardson of ʽChantilly Laceʼ's fame) was, indeed, dead, and that we were therefore deprived of satisfying our curiosity as to where his talent would have led him in the golden decade of rock music. The partially consolatory news were that, prior to dying, he left behind an impressive stockpile of unfinished recordings — one that would keep the small market satisfied for years and years to come, even though most of the recordings had to be tampered with in order to acquire «commercially viable» form, and the tamperings were not always up to par (a rather unpleasant side of the music business here, with the same story to be repeated a decade later for the prematurely departed Jimi Hendrix).

The vaults were opened less than a month after the funeral, although the first installation was modest: The Buddy Holly Story consisted almost entirely of A- and B-sides released during the artist's lifetime, with only one exception (ʽIt Doesn't Matter Anymoreʼ / ʽRaining In My Heartʼ only came out at about the same time as the LP). Less than a year later, in response to the high chart performance of the album, Vol. 2 followed — an entirely different story altogether, consis­ting mainly out of «from-the-vaults» stuff, much of it coming from Buddy's last acoustic session on December 8, 1958, where he was laying down demos, armed with nothing but his voice and guitar. Naturally, it was deemed that the sound had to be brought up to standards, and... well, at least those results were significantly better than some of the sacrileges to follow.

Since the two LPs have this fundamental difference, it is a bit of a cheat to write about the first and second volumes in the same review, but, actually, an entire half of the songs on The Buddy Holly Story proper were already present on LPs released in Buddy's lifetime, and mentioned in earlier reviews, which would make a separate entry a little superfluous. Out of the other six, the cover of Bobby Darin's ʽEarly In The Morningʼ is fun, but not particularly interesting, being es­sentially a re-write-lite of Ray Charles' ʽI Got A Womanʼ; ʽThink It Overʼ is a bit of 12-bar blues redone in a pop format, cute, catchy, but achieving pop perfection only a little bit later, in 1961, when Ernie Maresca and Dion recast it as ʽThe Wandererʼ; and ʽHeartbeatʼ shows some Cuban influence in its melody, even though Buddy's vocals remain quite steadfast in «folk-pop» territory, making for a fun contrast.

The veritable masterpiece here is arguably ʽIt's So Easyʼ, which very much sets the standard for the «inventive upbeat guitar-based pop song» of the next decade: catchy (and multi-part) chorus, multi-part verse, highly melodic solo, and a certain vocal/guitar unity, working towards making the listener feel alright. Not to mention the Crickets' usual roughness-round-the-edges to put a dense checkmark in the «for rebellious teenagers» rather than «for respectable middle class audi­ences» square — those ragged guitar licks are definitely for kids, not their parents.

By the time of his final official sessions, however, Buddy was showing some disturbing signs of agreeing to «water down» his sound: not only was ʽIt Doesn't Matter Anymoreʼ written by Paul Anka (not particularly frightening, since the song is very much in the folk-pop idiom and could just as well be sung by, say, the Everly Brothers), but it also featured the orchestral overdubs of Dick Jacobs, while ʽRaining In My Heartʼ, with the same orchestration, was credited to the song­writing team of F. and B. Bryant, resident hitwriters for the same Everlys. Jacobs' arrangements are careful and moderately tasteful, with interesting and memorable parts written for the harp, but Buddy's vocals are too weak to properly handle the demands of either song — he does his best, yet he still has to strain and stretch on all the complicated bits — and it only goes to show that, songwriting being his greatest gift, he has very little business integrating his own persona into songs written by other people.

This is why Vol. 2, almost entirely consisting of Buddy originals (with the exception of Bobby Darin's rather inane ʽNow We're Oneʼ and Norman Petty's overtly sentimental ballad ʽMoon­dreamsʼ, exacerbated with a wannabe-Heifetz salon violin solo), is, in a way, more con­sistent than the hit-laden original, and perhaps even more indicative of those artistic roads that Buddy might have followed. Granted, ʽPeggy Sue Got Marriedʼ was a rather silly idea for a follow-up to ʽPeggy Sueʼ proper (although back in 1958-59, the habit of releasing an inferior «sequel» that had the same melody as the major hit was still an absolute commonality). But its follow-up on the re­cord is ʽWell... All Rightʼ, a song so ahead of its own time that it would sound perfectly in its right place a whole decade later when Blind Faith integrated it on their own self-titled album — a successful attempt on Buddy's part to add a «thoughtfully mature» component to the usual «teen­agers in love» subject. Not only is the melodic structure here highly unusual even for the folk-pop standards of the era, but there is also an attractive philosophical ring to the way Buddy mumbles "we'll live and love with all our might... our lifetime of love will be all right", indicating that "those foolish kids" might actually be far more ready than their own parents.

Another well-known highlight here is ʽCrying, Waiting, Hopingʼ, a song particularly famous for its clever overdubbing by the rest of the Crickets, who had to work with Buddy's demo and fill in the «echo» vocals for the title, one of the few «post-Buddy» creative decisions on his work that has become universally accepted even after the original demo had surfaced — probably because without the echo vocals the little ladder that Buddy has constructed in the place of the vocal me­lody seems to be naturally lacking several steps, which his co-workers are only too happy to be able to fill in. This particular tune the Beatles did not improve on, when they played it live on the BBC — maybe because they highlighted the wrong George on it (Harrison, whose vocal perfor­mance was quite flat compared to Buddy's, instead of Martin, who may have given them a few clues on how to gloss it up properly).

A deeper dig will, however, also uncover less familiar highlights — such as ʽLearning The Gameʼ, with its melancholy-meditative flair, ʽTake Your Timeʼ, with an inventive organ backing (probably posthumous as well), and ʽThat Makes It Toughʼ, with another strained vocal delivery, but curious in how it borrows the basic structure from generic country and tries to fuse it with the grandiose flair of anthemic pop balladry.

In between all of these, the two volumes of Story do an excellent job of showing just about all of the man's strong and weak points alike — where the man comes from, where he's been to, and where he would be a-headin' if fate had been kinder. Speculating on the issue is useless; there is no evidence that, out of all the early heroes of the rock'n'roll era, Buddy could have been the one to overcome the «Fifties' Curse», but it is also true that, of all his contemporaries, he showed the least interest in clinging to an established formula, experimenting with words, chords, and moods to the bitter end, and not letting success go to his head. Would that have helped him retain vitality and relevance in the British Invasion era? I guess only Paul McCartney can tell.

Buddy Holly: That'll Be The Day

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.

Buddy Holly: Buddy Holly

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...

Buddy Holly: The "Chirping" Crickets

BUDDY HOLLY: THE «CHIRPING» CRICKETS (1957)

1) Oh Boy; 2) Not Fade Away; 3) You've Got Love; 4) Maybe Baby; 5) It's Too Late; 6) Tell Me How; 7) That'll Be The Day; 8) I'm Lookin' For Someone To Love; 9) An Empty Cup (And A Broken Date); 10) Send Me Some Lovin'; 11) Last Night; 12) Rock Me My Baby.

If you listen to all of the Beatles' officially released recordings in chronological order, the very first song you are going to hear will be ʽThat'll Be The Dayʼ, pressed by the Quarrymen in 1958, approximately one year after the song had appeared on the Brunswick label as the first official single by The Crickets. Naturally, this is no matter of coincidence since, by all accounts, Buddy Holly was the single greatest influence (out of many) on the Beatles, at least up until the band's «musical globalization» in 1965.

At first, it might even seem a little bizarre. When Buddy made the world aware of his ex­istence, in mid-1957, «rock and roll» had already been firmly established — Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Elvis, even Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis were all recognized stars, with a bunch of hit singles safely tucked under their belts; Buddy was a relative latecomer to this parade of flashy, rebellious personalities. Compared to each of them separately, he did not seem to stand much of a competitive chance. Never a technically great singer; never a particularly gifted or fluent instrumental player; definitely nowhere near an «onstage volcano» in terms of performance — just a normal, quiet Texas kid, happy enough to wear a neatly pressed tuxedo and bowtie, with a proper haircut and with those silly thick glasses that really made him look more like an aspiring Ivy League freshman than a rock'n'roller.

So what exactly did Buddy Holly bring to the table that was not already on it? Hope, I'd say. For all those thousands of kids who were not blessed with the vocal cords of an Elvis, or the natural dynamism of a Jerry Lee, or the cool looks of a Gene Vincent, it was Buddy who conveyed the message — what matters is not the flashiness of style, what matters is substance. Buddy's major achievements all lie in the field of songwriting. Had he mostly stuck to covering other people's material, he would have remained but a small footnote in the history of popular music, as his first LP proves without a doubt: out of the 12 numbers on Chirping Crickets, the ones that stay with you are almost always those where Buddy is credited as chief songwriter.

I will not shy away from saying that I almost always prefer other people's covers of Buddy's material to the originals. Even that early Quarrymen cover of ʽThat'll Be The Dayʼ sounds almost as good as Buddy's (and would have sounded even better had the lads had access to better studio equipment). ʽNot Fade Awayʼ would eventually be expropriated, toughened up, and set for early anthemic status by the Stones. And when John Lennon later covered Buddy's interpretation of ʽSend Me Some Lovin'ʼ on his Rock And Roll album, he raised the bar tenfold in the vocal de­partment, adding explicit emotional torment where Holly only hinted at it.

But none of that mattered back in 1957 — and even though it matters today, it is also a pretext to try and figure out why, in the long run, these early songs have survived and are still listenable to­day. Sure enough, there is some stuff on this Crickets debut that is not all that listenable. In par­ticular, «The Picks», a New Mexican family vocal outfit, provide a rather awful doo-wop-style backing, spoiling much of the ballad component of the album (ʽLast Nightʼ, etc.) — not that Buddy Holly himself was ever made for doo-wop, of course, but it also has to be kept in mind that, like everything else at the time, The Chirping Crickets was really just a bunch of cool singles surrounded by obligatory filler.

We will disregard the filler, then, and focus all the attention on the classics: ʽThat'll Be The Dayʼ and ʽNot Fade Awayʼ as the best known; ʽMaybe Babyʼ, ʽTell Me Howʼ, ʽI'm Looking For Someone To Loveʼ as their lesser worthy brethren. First and foremost, this is not «threatening» music: Buddy was not a «rebel», he had a thoroughly «pop» conscience through and through, and the music avoids dark bass lines, distortion, aggression, etc., as much as possible (just look at how the «spooky», «tribal» Bo Diddley beat is niftily transformed into a happy celebration of love and fidelity on ʽNot Fade Awayʼ). At the same time, it is not «cheesy» pop — it is jangly, guitar-based pop, no strings, pianos, or production slickness attached, something that even the rough'n'tough garage-rock crowds of the early 1960s would find easy to appreciate. Most importantly, it all just sounds natural and realistic. Where Ricky Nelson (whose public image appeared the same year as Buddy) gave the impression of «glossy manufacture» from the start, Buddy simply is as buddy does.

What I really mean to say is that Holly compensates for his technical flaws with evident charisma — present everywhere, not just in his looks (always clean, never glossy), but also in his sweet, shaky, naturally-stuttery vocals, and in his guitar playing, with delicate, memorable phrasing that sometimes mimicks Carl Perkins or Scotty Moore, but just as frequently consists of original lines (unfortunately, «The Picks» too often overshadow them — ʽMaybe Babyʼ could have been so much better without all the waah-waahs and the pa-da-dams). The songwriting ideas might have been replicated and enhanced, but the personality could not: Buddy Holly offers that perfect compro­mise between the «gruff rocker» and the «teen idol» that is actually much harder to attain than it might look upon first sight.

As for the rating, The Chirping Crickets has way too much filler on it for a regular thumbs up, but if we introduce «The Fifties' Correction» and only rate it in accordance with the quality of the singles, which we should, things will obviously change. That said, unlike the self-titled follow-up, Chirping Crickets is hardly worth hunting for if you already have all the best stuff on a com­pilation — filler is filler, and nobody should be obliged to associate Buddy with doo-wop ballads (or hear him sing songs written by Roy Orbison, for that matter).