Not Fade Away: A Look Back at Buddy Holly and The Crickets
The relevance of musical aptitude has waxed and waned with what the general public has decided is in fashion. As a result, one could argue that the mainstream musical landscape has seen yearlong talent droughts more than once or twice before, and it would not be a difficult point to argue. Coinciding with the explosion of MTV, artist and band members had to present evocative visuals and in no uncertain terms be physically attractive-- talent was an added bonus. In the 1990s, feelings were "in," and it became trend to be introspective; in 2017, it is social media which dictates an artist's commercial successes. However, at the earliest on-set of rock and roll, the rules for pop music presentation were still developing, with racial politics and an icy reception from the jazz industry playing an important role.
Just shortly before four unknown young men from Liverpool, England would take the world by force with their accessible sound and rebellious creativity, another four young men from Lubbock, Texas were busy laying down the foundation for what would become the rock and roll revolution. Niki Sullivan, Jerry Allison, Joe B. Maudlin, and Charles Holley were studio musicians merely dabbling in the only type of true indulgence teenagers had at that time. Blues and rockabilly, country and folk-- already established genres in their own right-- would be used as raw clay for the four boys, who would craft a concoction that would revolutionize the adolescent's very place in society.
But before then, a landmark invention would have to hit shelves in order to get their unique blend to the masses.
With the end of World War II came the advent of the personal radio, the forefather of the Walkman, Discman, Minidisc Player, the iPod, and now the smartphone and streaming services. These small, compact radios were a far cry away from the larger beasts installed in parlors and dens across the world. Which program to listen to on which evening was no longer decided upon by democracy; rather, the sole owner and operator had control over what he or she filled her ears with. This practice had only ever been seen before with the mass production of books. In a world where America had been the heroes in Europe (and the ogres in Asia), life for the average teenager meant being bombarded with omnipresent, brightly painted advertisements, new technology, the promises of travel with family-sized camper vans, the sweet tastes of new candies and ice cream from hamburger joints, and all of it still very much constricted by the need to be "one of us." Regardless, it was the first time in American history that the standard, family-centric paradigm was broken-- the average teenager no longer needed to "share," so to speak.
The personal radio, merely an empty vessel, would soon work its way into the hands of every child and teenager and became a revolution, but it needed the content to propel it forward. And rock and roll, blues, country, and danceable R&B became the software needed to break the mold. The days of jazz pop were slowly being eclipsed, its subversive counter culture once perceived as dangerous was more common place than ever before. The hot, new thing by the middle of the 1950s became records with an electric edge to them. Although tame by today's standards, the melodies and guitar riffs (often adapted and retooled from blues and country-folk origins),present on these recordings were integral to music evolution and still hold their own today.
The combination of Sullivan, Allison, Maudlin, and Holley proved to be reactive, and lucrative. Charles Holley, a charismatic front man with boy-next-door looks, was quick to show his licks from the word go. The boys formed as The Crickets, following the natural dissolution of another band, The Three Tones, and released The Chirping Crickets in 1957, a mixture of original material and blues/R&B covers featuring tight musicianship and impressive performance. 1958's almost immediate follow-up would be the result of a slick marketing ploy, catapulting the front man into the realm of supreme celebrity. The record would bear his now-iconic stage name: Buddy Holly.
Albums were an entirely different beast in the 1950s in comparison to today, and thus these two projects cannot be analyzed separately. Although thematic projects had been ushered into the mainstream music canon by Frank Sinatra, who is often credited with creating the earliest examples of concept albums, rock and roll was a newborn baby rapidly stumbling towards the age of growing pains. As such, Buddy Holly is not an album that was assembled with any great attention to detail. In reality, it is the second slice of the Crickets pie, released under Holly's name in order to capitalize on the band's signature sound and Holly's ever-growing popularity. Also, it was a clever way around contractual obligations by signing the band as two separate acts. The Chirping Crickets and Buddy Holly are two sides of the very same coin, the former a slightly more distant affair in comparison to the latter's more targeted presentation. Whereas The Chirping Crickets is far more general in its approach, the songs on Buddy Holly seem to be directing themselves at a teenage audience while simultaneously marketing the man for whom the record is named.
The two albums are neck and neck in terms of their quality, which stand out as arguably the best survived recordings of the whole of the 1950s. The range of fidelity on these records is astounding for the time period, with raw experimentation placed right at the forefront. Although the songs seem to draw their inspirations from a myriad of sources (from classical to lullaby to rhythm and blues), they are defined by the band's willingness to push forth into unknown territory. This is perhaps best evinced by the simplistic and sweet "Everyday," which perfectly encapsulates Holly's charisma and ability to adapt his voice to particular song styles. This evergreen is defined by the rather interesting combination of certain elements: acoustic and bass guitars, a typewriter, Holly's voice, and the gentle slapping of hands on Jerry Allison's knees. Its lack of decoration is strong evidence that less is, in many cases, more. It is also at stark contrast to the up-tempo rendition of "Ready Teddy," on which Buddy snarls with the gusto and experienced snap of a man thirty years his senior.
Despite not being the most artistic of albums, Buddy Holly is a non-stop disc of action, collecting within its short half-hour run time some of Holly and The Crickets' most important material. The classic (albeit rather overrated musically) "Peggy Sue" defines golden oldies in today's society, and the definitive reading of Sonny West's "Rave On" is a compact rock bullet to the ears. But elsewhere on this album, the deeper cuts ruminate and delight with their slick production and perfectly crafted melodies. From the jazzy, bass and piano--driven "Look at Me" to the rather sensual "Words of Love," the material present here is nothing if not far more advanced than the average pop songs on radio of the day. Whereas much of the standard fair was uncompromisingly pop or uncompromisingly rock, The Crickets managed to marry the genres, creating the blueprint for those who came after them.
The influence from black musicians of the era is full and complete on both The Chirping Crickets and Buddy Holly, which (as opposed to later-era acts like The Beach Boys and at times The Beatles) do not rob-- they contribute to the sound of the day. These four men were deep in the trenches, their youthful energy spilling over across two marvelous pieces of wax. Unfortunately, both of these records are meager when taken on the whole. Due to the nature of the recording industry at that time, much of Holly's best work (both with and without The Crickets) is not present on these two canon albums. Neither houses the spectacularly sexy "Well, All Right," the signature "That'll Be the Day," or "Blue Days, Black Nights," that last of which John Fogerty would later lift for his Blue Moon Swamp album in 1997.
There is a wealth of fantastic material to discover when searching through demos and one-off singles, in addition to Decca Records's That'll Be the Day, the unofficial third LP in Holly's canon, released only in response to The Crickets' later success on Coral and Brunswick. There's the downright sassy, almost baroque-pop "It Doesn't Marry Anymore," the near tropical stylings of "Heartbeat," and the bittersweet sequel "Peggy Sue Got Married" tucked in between all the flash and sizzle of Holly's biggest hits. They are also important clues for where Holly would have taken his musical adeptness into the 1960s, had he lived to help define them. His final recordings, unfortunately dubbed after his death, serve as our last glimpses into what the future could have been. At times, they are difficult to listen to.
Many of Holly's hits would be defined by the long shadow cast by his untimely death during the Winter Dance Party Tour in 1959, with "True Love Ways," an unreleased ballad from 1958 written for Holly's wife, perhaps the most heart-breaking of them all: "Sometimes we'll sigh / Sometimes we'll cry / And we'll know why just you and I know true love ways." These posthumous hits, along with some of his most experimental and/or forgotten material, would be collected and released on various compilations, the best of which being Decca Records's comprehensive triple-disc set The Very Best of Buddy Holly & The Crickets and the rare but complete Not Fade Away.
Today, Holly is regarded as one of the great grand-fathers of modern rock and roll, and nobody would be wrong in this declaration. However, it is important to note the important songwriting contributions from Jerry Allison and record producer Norman Petty. Between the three of them, they are responsible for the band's most iconic and important works. With Holly's tragic and untimely death (now coined "The Day the Music Died") we, as listeners, lost the original trajectory for pop music in forms we can only imagine. Would there be a The Beatles? A Duran Duran? A Madonna? A Janet Jackson? A Radiohead? Would disco have risen to power in the 1970s, and would synthesizers had taken the 1980s by storm? We cannot say, but one thing is for sure-- Buddy Holly and his bandmates had a lot more to offer the world that we could ever fathom. Although his career began and ended during the most embryonic phase of rock and roll’s fairly short existence, The Crickets ushered the genre towards excellence and informed every act who came after them.
Click here to buy material from Buddy Holly and The Crickets.