It should be interesting to see how many songs over the years have incorporated elements of the Buddy Holly sound - including Buddy Holly covers. This should especially help younger Holly fans find songs that Buddy influenced. I'll nominate 10 from the 1960s to kick it off - I know you'll come up with lots more :

Sheila (Tommy Roe '63)
I Fought The Law (Bobby Fuller Four '65)
Surfer Joe (The Surfaris '63)
Hats Off To Larry (Del Shannon '62)
I'm Telling You Now (Freddie & The Dreamers '65)
Hooray For Hazel (Tommy Roe '66)
Sugar & Spice (The Searchers '64)
Rubber Ball (Bobby Vee '61)
Let Her Dance (Bobby Fuller Four '65)
Keep Searchin' (Del Shannon '64)

balcony buddy

no doubt we could list songs for days that would qualify. Mccartney said that the first 40 songs the Beatles wrote were all Buddy Holly influenced. incidentally, 'i fought the law' was written by none other than Sonny Curtis, so it's little wonder there's Holly influence in that song!

but your question is an intriguing one, and hopefully others will come up with more specific examples, like you did. me, i hear Buddy in almost every 60's song.

You're right. Without Buddy '60s music would have sounded very, very different.

Without Buddy all music would have sounded very very different. Buddys influence certainly didnt end in the 60s. "Even today, brand new relaese, well you hear Buddy Holly in that"-Keith Richards. Even during the changing face of the 90s Holly was in there. In fact, a great song entitled Buddy Holly hit number one in 94. Not to mention ever piece of work to come from that band, Weezer,sounds very Holly influenced, and they are still very popular today. Its no wonder i love them so much.

Hi crazy_for_buddy. I love Weezer's "Buddy Holly" video. Great stuff!

In the '80s, I was in a New Wave recording band out of LA, called The Bings. Our songwriting was heavily influenced by Brian Wilson and Buddy Holly. The band's sound combined elements of The Hollies, The Byrds, Cheap Trick, and The Ramones. A unique combination, but it sure worked. Buddy pops up in the strangest places.

Balcony Buddy
Seattle, WA USA

lol. Yeah, Holly always turns up where we would least expect. Who would have guessed he be mentioned on he The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack?
p.s love the Hollies! Too bad they took that name, was my first choice lol.

it's true that Buddy still influences people even today. no question about that. my point by stipulating the 60's was in regards to what Jerry Allison said, which was that the kids who came to hear the Crickets were the musicians and aspiring artists, not the teenyboppers. those kids went on to form bands, write songs, produce records, etc.... throughout the 60's. people like mick jagger, paul mccartney, john lennon, brian wilson, etc.... and as music evolved throughout the late 60's and the 70's, you had bands and artists, directly influenced by Buddy Holly, who were then, in turn, beginning to influence others. and so i would say that Buddy's influence was and is still there, but it's less direct now, because so many in the 60's took his ideas and concepts and utilized them. most people aren't aware of the original source, in other words, only those who came after.

in a way that's a shame, that Buddy is not given more credit for his enormous accomplishments, but it's to be expected. the obsession with elvis and later, the beatles, tended to obscure Buddy's work for quite awhile. thank God don mcclean came along with American Pie and got people interested in Buddy once again.

Speaking of places you wouldn't expect BH to pop up. On Adam & The Ants' 1979 debut album Dirk Wears White Sox, part of the lyric to the song Nine Plan Failed goes:
They wheeled him down the corridor / upon a metal trolley / Now he wears big spectacles / and he sings like Buddy Holly.

It's true, there are so many songs that owe a tip of the horn-rimmed glasses to Buddy's influence - but there is another echelon of hit songs that are so royally Holly-fied that he should have received a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Song Co-Written By A Dead Guy".

Here are a few more:

"Dizzy" (Tommy Roe '69)
Tommy Roe always sounds like Buddygum (Buddy Holly-ish Bubblegum Music). Tommy is sugar-coated innocence personified. But dang, he does it so well!

"Patches" (Dickie Lee '62)
Whoa, daddy - this is a serious tear-jerker! Boy falls in love with "Patches", a girl who lives in old Shantytown. His pappy says he can't love her no more. So, she drowns herself in the river - and the boy vows to join her in eternal aquatic bliss. In all his teenage angst, Dickie Lee nails the style of Buddy's "True Love Ways".

"Love's Made A fool Of You" (Bobby Fuller Four '65)
A white-lightnin' Buddy cover song. Bobby Fuller was "1957 Buddy Holly" played with 1965 verocity. Bobby absolutely SMOKED! Tragically, his rising star fell just as quickly as it rose. Bobby was found dead in the parking garage of his Hollywood apartment about the time that "I Fought The Law went Top-20". Despite evidence that foul play was involved, LAPD ruled his death a suicide.

"Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" (Herman's Hermits '65)
For three years 1964-67, Manchester's Herman's Hermits bombarded the American Top-40 charts. "Heartbeat" is a perfect example of the British Invasion at its Holly-driven best, as is.....

....."There's A Kind Of Hush" (Herman's Hermits '67)
Peter Noone, aka Herman, has always had a lot of Buddy influence in his music. "Hush" borrows from the writing style of "Rainin' In My Heart". The flipside - we're talking 45 RPMs here - "No Milk Today" was also a smash hit on the U.S. charts - and sounded a bit like...you guessed it!

"I Fell In Love" (Carlene Carter '90)
Ahhh, something from the '90s. This "Tex-Mex Meets Rockabilly" smoker was named one of the Top 100 Love Songs of Alltime by Country Music Television - and it's straight outa Buddy Hollywood!

So, where can one find these classic hits that owe so much to the Buddy Holly legacy? Well, if you haven't got a vinyl collection of snap-cracklin' pop gems, like some of us - there is that vast cybor-space supermarket of music downloads available over the internet.

Many of these songs can be found at Wallmart.com for a mere 88 cents (U.S.) per song - where you'll also find an excellent selection of Buddy's and Ritchie Valens' music.

Balcony Buddy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Balcony Buddy,

its funny that wallmarts website would have an ok selection of Buddy and Ritchie cds, but heaven help you if you should go into an actual wallmart store and look for them. they sell nothing but picks overdubs, and youd be lucky to find Ritchie on a mixed cd...and people wonder why we download...

Hi Crazy_For_Buddy...

I don't know about their CD selection - but, as I'd mentioned, Wallmart.com does have an excellent selection of WAV file downloads for both Buddy & Ritchie. Do they really need ME to give them exposure?

In Ritchie's case, their WAV files do include studio out-takes for "Come On Let's Go" and I think "Donna", plus his "Winter Dance Party" radio spot. Aside from that, there are the usually songs from the first album. I wish they'd release "Live at Pacoima Junior High" on CD.

As for Buddy, they have 155 WAV files. There is some duplication, but do include some of the early recordings like "Down The Line" and "Valley Of Tears", all the Decca stuff is there right through to the overdubbed apartment songs - Even "Holly Hop" and "Ready Teddy - not bad at all for a chain store website.

Balcony Buddy

quote:

Originally posted by jerry:
it's true that Buddy still influences people even today. no question about that. my point by stipulating the 60's was in regards to what Jerry Allison said, which was that the kids who came to hear the Crickets were the musicians and aspiring artists, not the teenyboppers. those kids went on to form bands, write songs, produce records, etc.... throughout the 60's. people like mick jagger, paul mccartney, john lennon, brian wilson, etc.... and as music evolved throughout the late 60's and the 70's, you had bands and artists, directly influenced by Buddy Holly, who were then, in turn, beginning to influence others. and so i would say that Buddy's influence was and is still there, but it's less direct now, because so many in the 60's took his ideas and concepts and utilized them. most people aren't aware of the original source, in other words, only those who came after.

in a way that's a shame, that Buddy is not given more credit for his enormous accomplishments, but it's to be expected. the obsession with elvis and later, the beatles, tended to obscure Buddy's work for quite awhile. thank God don mcclean came along with American Pie and got people interested in Buddy once again.

jerry
you are quite right that Buddy Holly influences people up to date.
in may i visited the musical "BUDDY" in Dortmund, my home town, i met my friend rainer again, the actor and singer of BUDDY, we know each other very well. he's the most popular Buddy singer in Germany, just as John Mueller in the USA. When you have a look at my website YEAH, BUDDY !, you'll find them both, Rainer and John. John sent me some mails plus photos of himself and the Clovis Music Festival, as well.
I'd like to mention, too, Runaway Express, the gorgeous band from Englewood, Colorado. All musicians including my friend Jim and his lovely wife SalGal are Buddy influenced since the first cry they made.
It's great to feel every day that Buddy is still in all of us.
God bless you
HANS

Hey everyone..
I believe the following songs have a Buddy Holly influence:
1)Julie-Bobby Fuller
2)Hey Julie-Fountains of Wayne
3)Gina-The Stray Cats
4)Just what I needed-The Cars
5)Don't let go-Weezer
6)Keep Fishin'-Weezer
7)Love me do-The Beatles
8) Love in a trash can-The Raveonettes

thinkitover82

welcome to the boards.

i would venture to say that just about everything by the stray cats was Holly influenced - one of the their songs was almost a direct copy of Rock Around With Ollie Vee.

Mccartney has said that the first 40 songs the Beatles ever wrote were totally Holly influenced.

it might actually be easier to try and name the songs that weren't influenced by Buddy Holly, though that would certainly be a small list, indeed.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry,

Hi jerry,

the so called "influenced songs" are without any doubt the tribute songs.

We all know a lot of them, some are very popular, the rest is nearly unknown.

The most popular group in Sweden, "ROXETTE", never made a tribute song about Buddy, but the male part of it, Benny, was a member of "Gyllene Tider" (Golden times), he sang a song with his band about Buddy.

It's one of the very rare and unknown Buddy tributes because of the language they used to sing it.

If you sing in English, you can find those titles very easily, but all the others have a problem to be found, although they make wonderful music, it's a real shame.

Everybody knows "A Tribute to Buddy Holly" by Mike Berry and the Outlaws, if he yould have sung it in Swedish, you wouldn't have recognized him.

We are all international fans of our mutual Buddy, but this is a problem to sing in your native language, the world won't find you.

For example: I have a CD "Holly Days", it's in French, who knows it ?

You can find the complete informations on my website " Yeah, Buddy ! ", if you go to the page "Collection".

German tributes are nearly unknown worldwide, although this country is one of those having Buddy nuts from the beginning, and there are a lot of them, me too.

ROCK ON !

From across the deep blue waters

HANS

There is so much stuff out there that has the Holly influence. The first song John Lennon ever wrote called "Hello Little Girl" was, according to Lennon himself, written to sound just like Buddy. If you have the Beatles Anthology #1 it's on there.
Marshall Crenshaw has cited Buddy Holly and The Beatles as two of his biggest influences.
The Smithereens, and Pat DiNizio in particular were influeced hugely by Buddy. They wrote a song about his wife entitled "Maria Elena" on their CD- entitled "11"
Pat even bought Buddys Ampex Tape recorder he recorded his last tunes on for about $14,000 about 1992.
Gary Busey, who played Holly in the 1978 Movie-"The Buddy Holly Story"-which is not very true to life- paid a whopping $242,000 for Holly's Gibson acoustic with a Hand-Tooled Leather cover made by Buddy himself.
In 1976, Elvis Presley said in a interview, that "looking back over the last 20 years or so, I'd have to say the guy that I have the most respect for would be Buddy Holly."
The Rolling Stones first hit- "Not Fade Away"
All the greatest Rock & Rollers have been very forthright in stating their admiration and influence from Buddy Holly. It doesn't get much better than that.

There is one singer who was so obviously influenced by Buddy and is a pretty good soundalike too,i am quite surprised that he has not been mentioned so far in this section and he is/was with a band called "Matchbox",on the album called "Matchbox" he does a cover of Buddy's "Tell Me How"(Charles Hardin,Jerry Allison,Norman Petty) this in my opinion is a great cover and i have to say i do not usually like cover versions,also,on a 45rpm single by "Matchbox" he does a song called "When You Ask About Love"(King Curtis,Jerry Allison)and the Buddy influence once again has a strong presence and this is a great version of the song...i would be very interested to hear what other lifelong Buddy Holly fans think of these "Matchbox" versions
Note: I think the "Matchbox" singer's name is Graham Fenton,but i am not sure.

not familiar with that group, but anyone with the guts to cover a great song like "tell me how" is alright by me. that's one of Buddy's best, in my view.

well not to point out the obvious here but:

buddy holly by weezer

i mean if you listen to any british invasion group of the '60s they all have a little buddy influence in them look at ferry cross the mersey by gerry and the pacemakers.

and of course shelia by tommy roe its peggy sue with different lyrics.

I really like marshall crenshaw, he played Buddy in Labamba and was the lead singer of the band in peggy sue got married. Someday, someway
is one of the best buddy influenced songs in my opinion. Marshall is great because he sings without the bubble gum sound. I'm surprised he isn't mentioned in this site more.

Hey, you just reminded me Not Fade Away, When I first Heard Sheila by Tommy Roe I thought it was Buddy Holly and so did some of my Friends. Looking back now though although the song is obviously Buddy influenced Tommy sounds nothing like him! how nieve we were back then! Gary

quote:

Originally posted by not_fade_away:
well not to point out the obvious here but:

buddy holly by weezer

i mean if you listen to any british invasion group of the '60s they all have a little buddy influence in them look at ferry cross the mersey by gerry and the pacemakers.

and of course shelia by tommy roe its peggy sue with different lyrics.

I believe the Crickets did a version of I Fought The Law too. Not only were Freddie and the Dreamers Buddy influenced but Freddie Garrity even looked like Buddy. Although I don't know if this was intentional or not. Also what about Adam Faith?, if thats not someone who's singing style was influenced by Buddy I don't know what is! Gary

quote:

Originally posted by Balcony Buddy:
It should be interesting to see how many songs over the years have incorporated elements of the Buddy Holly sound - including Buddy Holly covers. This should especially help younger Holly fans find songs that Buddy influenced. I'll nominate 10 from the 1960s to kick it off - I know you'll come up with lots more :

Sheila (Tommy Roe '63)
I Fought The Law (Bobby Fuller Four '65)
Surfer Joe (The Surfaris '63)
Hats Off To Larry (Del Shannon '62)
I'm Telling You Now (Freddie & The Dreamers '65)
Hooray For Hazel (Tommy Roe '66)
Sugar & Spice (The Searchers '64)
Rubber Ball (Bobby Vee '61)
Let Her Dance (Bobby Fuller Four '65)
Keep Searchin' (Del Shannon '64)

Pearl Jam did a live concert recording of Buddy's "Everyday" a couple of years back and then said that song was the ground floor of the next one and said "You all should be proud." Does anyone know what the next song they played was? I heard it on the radio.

quote:

Originally posted by Rhonda:
Pearl Jam did a live concert recording of Buddy's "Everyday" a couple of years back and then said that song was the ground floor of the next one and said "You all should be proud." Does anyone know what the next song they played was? I heard it on the radio.

im not sure what the next song was but i know they performed that song live when they played in lubbock, TX. they actually do a really good cover of it which is rare cause most pearl jam covers arent that good(dont get me wrong im a huge pearl jam fan just not their covers)