The Godfather: Peter Corris on Buddy Holly

Tags: Buddy Holly/ Chuck Berry/ Elvis/ HUM/ Little Richard/ Newtown/ Paul McCartney/ Ritchie Valens/ the Big Bopper

For no particular reason I can think of I recently experienced a wish to listen to Buddy Holly. I’d had some singles and a vinyl ‘best of’, but that was a long time ago. I went to the HUM CD and DVD shop in Newtown thinking I’d have to order an album in. As everyone interested in popular music knows, Buddy Holly was killed at the age of 23 in a plane crash in 1959 along with Ritchie Valens and JP ‘the Big Bopper’ Richardson. But I was wrong; 55 years after his death they still had Buddy Holly in stock.

I was offered two – The Classic Buddy Holly and The Very Best of Buddy Holly, a three-disc set. I bought the latter for $19.95 and took it home to listen. I played all 54 tracks and repeated some to confirm my reactions.

I was surprised to realise how completely I knew the lyrics. I could sing along but only did so in snatches because my singing is so flat. Another impression was of the great variation in quality, from absolutely brilliant to downright bad.

The big hits, like ‘That’ll be the Day’, ‘Peggy Sue’, ‘Rave On’ and ‘Oh, Boy’, stood up very well vocally and instrumentally. Holly’s voice was strong, with a very good range and the guitar backing on most tracks was, in Chuck Berry’s words ‘like ringin’ a bell’ – very clean and crisp.

The rumbling drums on ‘Peggy Sue’ help to explain why outraged racist Texans denounced Holly’s work as ‘jungle music’. There is a raw sexuality on some tracks, especially when Holly throws in a bass phrase here and there. In a wild, rocking, seemingly almost out of control ‘Rock Around With Olive Vee’, when he sings ‘you gotta put a stop to me tonight’ you feel he means it.

Holly was a year younger than Elvis and apparently was in the audience a few times before he opened the show for Elvis in Holly’s home town of Lubbock. Some of the rockabilly tracks clearly have a Presley influence, while his version of ‘You’re So Square’ is almost identical to that of the King.

There are several covers, a terrific one of Little Richard’s ‘Ready Teddy’ and a very limp rendering of the same singer’s ‘Send Me Your Lovin’’. Holly’s influence on later artists is well attested and there are more than a few Paul McCartney-like touches on several tracks.

Holly, of course, has been covered many times, not always successfully. Great Stones admirer though I am, I’d have to say Buddy’s vocal on ‘Not Fade Away’ is better than Mick’s.

Holly was an innovator. The falsetto on ‘Peggy Sue’ was shocking in its day; he was possibly the first white singer to use it. ‘Rave On’ had an unusually powerful title and drive, while, unless I am misreading it, there is a strong sexual implication in the curiously uncharacteristic ‘Midnight Shift’.

Many of the tracks on the discs were recorded on poor equipment, which accounts for their lack of impact but, as with most singers, questions of taste arrive. Laments like ‘It’s Not Too Late’ and ‘What To Do’ are, frankly, feeble. Much of the inferior material wasn’t released when he was alive. As indicated, he was at his best when rawly rocking – throw in ‘Early in the Morning’, ‘Maybe Baby’ and ‘It Seems So Easy’ – and mediocre when crooning with string backing: the tinkling ‘Everyday’ and ‘True Love Ways’ and the lame ‘Raining in My Heart’.

This raises the question of what might have lain ahead had Holly not died so young. Apparently he was interested in being in the movies which, given what happened to Elvis, sounds a warning note. Hard to know which way he would have gone. Surviving film clips suggest he had a lot to learn about presentation and one hopes he would have shed the suit and tie and the horn-rims and rocked on, but we should be grateful for what we have of his best stuff.