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Buddy Holly Bio
Buddy Holly Bio - Buddy Holly Biography
Buddy Holly Bio
Buddy was born Charles Hardin Holley in
Lubbock Texas on September 7th, 1936. The youngest of four children Buddy
grew up in a modest environment. His father Lawrence Holley worked various
odd jobs and throughout 1930s and 1940s was employed as a tailor and
salesman in a local clothing store. His mother Ella Drake Holley was a
full time mother and housewife. The e in Hollys name was dropped due to a
spelling error on his first recording contract. Excited, and not wanting
to jeopardize his contract, he simply signed his name as Buddy, a
childhood nickname, Holly.Buddy began his musical journey at the age of
eleven with piano lessons. His older brothers Larry and Travis already
played a couple of instruments and his mother felt it was time Buddy
learned to play something too. Oddly enough, after only nine months of
lessons and being applauded by his teacher as one of her top students
Buddy, without explanation quit. Still, it goes without saying when Buddy
quit his piano lessons he was going to take up something else. He told his
parents he wanted to play the guitar, and even though they were struggling
financially they still found a way to grant his request. It wasnt long
before Buddy was entertaining his friends on the school bus and
contemplating a musical career. |
Buddy Holly Biography
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Buddy Holly Bio (continued)
Buddy performed during his teen
years with close friend Bob Montgomery. Billing themselves as Buddy and
Bob, they performed local events throughout Lubbock, Texas. It was after
opening a show for Elvis Presley at a local gig in 1955 that Buddy knew
exactly what he wanted to do. Success, however, didnt come until Holly
formed his new group, the Crickets that consisted of Jerry Allison on
drums, Niki Sullivan on guitar, and Joe Maudlin on bass. The Crickets
recorded Thatll Be The Day in the Clovis, New Mexico studios of producer
Norman Petty. The record hit the top of the charts in September of 1957.
The group continued their success with songs such as Oh Boy and Peggy Sue.
Buddy, however, was growing restless, and in the fall of 1958, due to
legal problems concerning royalty money, he split from the Crickets and
Norman Petty. He married Maria Santiago and relocated to Greenwich Village
in New York City. In October of that same year, Holly recorded True Love
Ways and It Doesnt Matter Anymore. The songs were powerful and filled with
promise. Sadly, Buddy would never realize their potential.
In January of 1959, Buddy
along with Ritchie Valens, the big bopper and other acts embarked on what
was billed as the winter dance party. Though billed as a dance party the
tour for the performers was anything but a party. From the very beginning,
the tour was plagued with difficulty. The tour buses inability to stay
running, a faulty heater, and the series of one-night shows caused many of
the performers to display cold and flu symptoms. It was after a show in
Clear Lake, Iowa that Buddy, tired of the miserable conditions, decided to
charter a plane. He hoped that he and his sidemen Waylon Jennings and
Tommy Allsup could wash their clothes and get a decent nights' sleep
before the next performance. The word quickly spread through the troop and
soon both Jennings and Alsup were getting requests to give up their seats.
J.P Richardson, the Big Bopper convinced Jennings to give up his seat
stating that a man his size wasnt able to put up with the cramped
conditions on the bus. Ritchie Valens appealed to Allsups gambling side by
proposing they flip a coin for the seat. Unfortunately for Valens, he won
the toss.
Holly, Valens, and Richardson along with their pilot Roger Peterson took
off from the Mason City airport on February 3rd at 12:40 A.M. All four men
perished soon after when their four seat aircraft crashed after takeoff.
The surviving members of the tour did not want to perform without their
stars but soon succumbed to the pressures of the promoters and continued
the final show. However, when Buddys band stepped on stage without their
leader there wasnt a dry eye in the audience. It was a terrible tragedy
that took the musical community many years to realize. As Don Mclean
hauntingly put it in his 1971 hit, The day the music died.
Buddy may have died in that plane crash, but his music most certainly did
not. His influence can be felt in all forms of popular music today. John
Lennon and Paul McCartney sight Buddy Holly as one of the main influences
on their early musical endeavors. Still, one cant help but wonder what
changes might have occurred in music if Buddy hadnt chartered a plane on
that fateful day. Sadly, we will never know.
Bio brought to you by http://buddyholly.musiciansforever.com |
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