Was this a single in the States or was it just Decca's sick sense of humour to make it one here-where it topped the charts.
Its my least favorite song of Holly's-did he really need Paul Anka to write stuff when his own songs were so much better
I wonder whether Holly had to be talked into doing this one when the same guy who did the Teresa Brewer things in the early 50s (Dick Jacobs) added the pizzicato strings.
This was a case of Holly being turned into a more sanitised version of what he was by Tin Pan Alley as Anka represents Tin Pan Alley.
The song topped the charts here because British record buyers are more sympathetic than American ones-other deceased artists who got chart toppers after were Eddie Cochran and Elvis and more recently both John Lennon and George Harrison.
The actual record and its arrangement were what the career of Adam Faith was built on beginning only 6 months later.

The answer is yes 'IT DOSENT MATTER ANYMORE' was the final single released in America during Buddy's lifetime .
It marked what some people consider to be a new phase of Holly's career It was the first single from the 'strings' sessions and peaked at # 13 shortly after the crash . At the last show at Clearlake they were giving away free 45's of 'It dosent matter anymore' and Who wouldnt want to have Paul Anka write a song for them 'he rocks'!

I really like this song, and I think it is a great example of Buddy's vocal talents.

Buddy didn't have to be talked into doing this one, he wanted to. I like it all right because it adds variety to Buddy's collection of recordings and it showcases Buddy's vocal abilities well. It is more commercial pop than rock or rockabilly, so a lot of people might not be into it for that reason.

Buddy was exploring other musical styles, probably a smart thing to do in the late 50's, when it was taken as a given by just about everyone that the rock and roll "fad" would soon pass.

Not to mention that Buddy recorded the song in one take ...with a full orchestra and that orchestra only had three hours to rehearse thier parts. The Dick Jacobs produced hit was not on the schedule to record and would not even exist if it was not for the insistance of Buddy who had just gotten the song from his friend and tour-mate Paul Anka .
On the day the song was recorded everybody at Coral Records thought it was a guarenteed #1 and Buddy was recieving a good deal of praise for his innovative melding of classical and Pop.
Buddy played "It dosent matter anymore" at every show on the Winter Dance Party tour and according to the the late great Waylon Jennings it was the most emotional part of the Moorehead Minnesota show the day of the crash and the irony of the song title was kinda eerie in some peoples eyes, to me it shows how short and unpredictable life can be.

richard

"it doesn't matter anymore" was one of the greatest records ever made, and demonstrates that Buddy was a brilliant singer, arranger, and interpreter of other people's songs.

you may have personally decided that it's not one of your favorites, but you're definitely in the minority with that view.

would rather listen to anything of Hollys than this one but don't think much of Paul Anka's songs either then or now.
We had all this stuff paraded again in the 60s with Freddie & the Dreamers and later with Gary Glitter and Tom Jones.
Not as much the actual production of "it doesn't matter..." but the words and the flippant attitude of a guy whose girls left him-you can tell by this that it was not a Holly composition because it has no drama and no rush to it.
However the record was a massive influence on the subsequent careers of John Barry and Adam Faith-Adam would steer his career through it until about 1964 when he thankfully was influenced by Merseybeat.
If you get a chance to pick up an Adam Faith 20 Golden Greats you would probably enjoy it immensley.It was one of the few hits collections which put everything in chronological order.
However I don't know how Adam Faith stands in the States and the Holly Fan clubs etc. re his Buddy Holly influenced music he meant no more than Billy Fury or Marty Wilde.Cliff Richard recorded many Holly songs same as Mike Berry who did the Tribute and his one time guitarist Hank Marvin recently cut a CD called Marvin play Holly-I actually saw a tape of this today at a Music Fair here

I agree there IS something different about the lyrics and its style, but I think the reason for the difference is that the song is one of only a hand-full of songs that give you a glimpse of what would have been a new phase in Buddy's career and no I have never heard the music of Adam Faith or Mike Berry ,but I am aware of them.

the Mike Berry tribute is powerful stuff which makes you go cold.It was produced by a real Holly fan Joe Meek so if America gets any of these Meek CDs check them out.At least 2 of them have the Tribute plus a heap of other Holly influenced British pop.
Meek committed suicide after killing his landlady-he was a troubled guy who actually recorded a lot of his stuff in his flat then licensed them out.
Biggest of his hits in America was the Tornadoes TELSTAR.
The CDs would bear his name same as all the Phil Spector ones do-a case of the producer being more famous than the artists
But you would have to check on Adam Faith who died a couple of years ago and has had a pretty low profile here since then

Hi Richard and all,

You say I don't go much on Paul Anka's Compositions,

well he speaks highly of yours, what a beautifull song It Doesn't Matter Any More

Also Diana and I Love You Baby, and what a wonderfull lyric he put to Come Habituda,
a French Lyric to a song that was written to an Italian folk song Yes My Way,
You may be have knowledge about groups in
general but be carefull when running down an artist of the stature of Paul Anka.

John Berry Franklin, yes I worked with Joe Meek and Mike Berry, glad you liked them.

I don't run down anybody the music press does that,forever telling us what a sorry state U S pop was in before the Beatles and it just wasn't that way at all.
I always liked most high school pop but Anka and Avalon I never liked much at all but thats just my preferences-no doubt they were immensley talented though their music was not for me

Hi Richard I am with you on Avalon, he was described as a travesty of Pop.
he never wrote anything it was purely for the lollipop brigade.
Anka is still going and writing, his latest album is great, but it's an aquired taste compared to his early commercial offerings.

John Berry Franklin.

Paul Anka was a star years before the teen idol craze hit .
Having toured with alan freed's Big show of stars and with Buddy and the Crickets and Jerry Lee Lewis in austrailia where rumor has it the young Anka was introduced to southern drinking by Jerry Lee ,the point is Paul should not be lumped with some of the easily forgettable teen idols that have polluted the airwaves for nearly forty years and yes Frankie Avalon does suck....BADLY

Frankie Avalon was really the pits-just a guy who was damn lucky.Those awful surf movies and his cameo shot in Grease...but you always have an alternative and thats to switch off

I will admit to liking "back to the beach" the last one wuth cameo's by stevie ray Vaughn,Peewee Herman,Bob Denver and others it reminded me that 'bird' IS the word

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Astley-Clemas:
Did he really need Paul Anka to write stuff when his own songs were so much better?

Buddy doesn't appear to have ever been adverse to covering other writers' material. Songs like "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", "Raining In My Heart" and "Early In The Morning" indicate Buddy was moving in the same direction as Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Ray Charles and Paul Anka. It was a calculated career decision. Buddy moves from Lubbock to New York City. Why? - to be in the hub of the Rockabilly scene? What kind of music was being pumped out of New York City in 1958-59? Right! Jazzy supper club music.

Old chestnuts like "Mack The Knife" were racing back up the charts with arrangements that owed more to Big Band than to Rock & Roll. Nothing wrong with that - Bobby Darin's "Mack The Knife" and Buddy's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" rank among my favorites records ever. They just weren't Rock & Roll. Rockabillies like Buddy Holly, Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Johnny Burnette were making the musical move "uptown". Ironically, what Pat Boone had been to 1955-57 Rock & Roll, Buddy and his buddies were destined to become a hipper version of in 1959.

Buddy wasn't moving to New York to be Rock & Roll's savior. He was moving there to conform to the middle-of-the-road dictates of the New York music business in an effort to sustain his career. Period.

So what resurrected Rock & Roll from it's doldrums? It wasn't Buddy Holly...or even Elvis. The savior turned out to be an overnight revival in 1961 of New York City street corner vocal groups (what we now call "Doo Wop).

Songs Like The Marcels' "Blue Moon", "Denise" by Randy & The Rainbows, and "I Love You" by The Volumes were taking up the banner of classic '50s groups like The Penguins, The Moonglows, and The Clef-Tones. They put real rock & roll back into the Top-40.

In 1963 Britain, Buddy Holly's music began dramatically transforming the future of music worldwide via The Beatles. Buddy became posthumously one of the most influential artists in Rock & Roll - but, had he lived to record in 1959-61, I wonder if that would have been the period we would be remembering him for.

Bacony Buddy

From the earliest point in Buddy's musical journey, he was covering other people's material. His mother relates how he used to entertain his classmates on the bus with Hank Sr. songs, and of course, the earliest known recording of Holly is a Ray Charles song.

In fact, of all the 50's stars, Holly probably
covered more of a variety of material than just about anyone. Which is why "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" was perfectly logical for Buddy, to say nothing of the fact that Paul Anka, his good friend, played it for him just before the string sessions. Holly obviously saw the potential of the song and wanted to be the first to record it. Also, if one knows the history of Echo, Buddy's high school girlfriend, the lyrics seem rather appropriate to how he must've felt when they broke up. Perhaps he felt the lyrics moreso than the music - we don't know. But we do know that he created a brilliant record with the song - then again, that was standard Holly procedure.

As to some of Balcony Buddy's comments, i agree with him that Buddy's influence on the Beatles began to be felt worldwide around 1963. But his influence upon the Beatles and others wasn't simply posthumous. It happened in real time, when Buddy was alive, as well as later, after he'd died.

I don't agree, however that Buddy's move to New York had only one purpose - that of conforming

quote:

to the middle-of-the-road dictates of the New York music business in an effort to sustain his career.

Buddy's reasons for moving to New York were quite varied, actually. For one, Maria had convinced him that the publishing aspect of his career hadn't been properly exploited to his advantage, and her connections were in exactly this area. So he knew that was a wise move. In addition, there was the break-up with the Crickets and the split with Norman Petty. His move to New York wasn't strictly about musical direction, though that likely played a role.
After all, without the Crickets, Buddy's music would've had to change anyway. But he was holding out hope they'd get back together, even as he moved to NY.

In any case, Buddy was always a musical chameleon, in that he was willing to try different things all the time, and was typically two or three steps ahead of everyone else in doing so. The string sessions were a prime example.

Maria has stated that even though the string sessions constituted a departure for Buddy, she felt he never would've 'deserted rock n' roll'. So it's anyone's guess as to how he'd have proceeded with his career once the WDP tour was over. We have some indication in the apartment tapes, recorded to give Dick Jacobs some idea of where he intended to go with the next record. But beyond that, who knows?

I agree with Jerry that Buddy's reasons for moving to New York were many, and Maria played a big part in the decision. While New York was the best choice for a young man in the music business in 1958, who knows where the changing times might have taken him? I've wondered what he might have done with Doo Wop. Has anyone ever made a Tex Mex- Doo Wop record?
Buddy was one of those rare artists who would have weathered Rock & Roll's dry years and would have very likely been right back on top by '62-'63 when groups like the Four Seasons, Dick Dale, The Isley Brothers, Joey Dee & The Starlighters, Randy & The Rainbows, and The Beach Boys were making great Rock & Roll music with a loud, upfront beat - a trademark of Buddy's 1957 and early-'58 recordings. Elvis was even back to releasing powerful records, like "Little Sister" and "Witchcraft" (two of his very best recordings, IMHO). And there's no getting around it - there were plenty of teen stars "doing" Buddy. From Tommy Roe's "Sheila" to The Surfaris "Surfer Joe" - The Buddy Holly sound was a fixture of the Top-10 through much of 1963......ahhhhh, but then along came 1964.
Balcony Buddy