BUDDY HOLLY WAS GREAT

I sometimes wonder if he would have lived the terrible accident if he would be greater than elvis and i think the ansewer would be yes. My favourite song is Bo diddley because it just wants u to get up and dance around. I just wanted to post this for a great entertainer whom past before his time

RIP BUDDY HOLLY,Richie Valens,and JP Richardson
AND THE THREE MEN I ADMIRE MOST THE FATHER SON AND THE HOLY GHOST CAUGHT THE LAST TRAIN FOR THE COAST THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

I didn't realize the significance of the date today until I experienced the incident below. I turned it into a short op/ed-type piece and showed it to one of my friends who suggested you all might appreciate both the coincidence and sentiment.

Cheers.

HP


A February Ghost Story

It's February 3, and I'm haunted by the ghosts of rock 'n' roll.

Apparitions of young men in their teens and early 20s swirl about my house in the heavy, winter fog that has followed an overnight ice storm. They're accompanied by distant drum beats and the twang of electric guitars run through amplifiers that aren't much more than glorified
transistor radios.

Faces float by my window. Elvis, wearing a red jacket and black shirt, looks in with a half-smile half-sneer and runs his hands across the top of his well-greased head. Carl Perkins sits on a bench, smoking a cigarette and waiting until it's his turn to sing about shotguns behind doors and mistreatment of blue suede shoes.

But, over near the corner of my deck, is a quiet-looking fellow with horn-rimmed glasses that look to be twice the size of his young face. He's wearing a light blue jacket as he reaches for a Fender Stratocaster
that's leaning against the wall.

Each artist is wired with the energy of music and live performance. They know they're creating new sounds that are influencing those around them. Their lives are in front of them, and they're just about to go on stage.

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I'm a frustrated musician. Or maybe I should say that I'm a musician who is frustrated.

Oh, I can play songs. I've always been able to pick out tunes on pianos and guitars. I've even written some songs that a select few have heard.

But I'm frustrated by lack of true talent that has doomed me to playing substandard versions of other people's work.

So, I exorcise my musical demons by performing living room concerts for my husband and pets and the occasional guest who is much too polite to
use the vaudevillian hook on the hostess.

I also try to incorporate my love of rock 'n' roll into everything I do.

Case in point, I teach a summer study abroad class about The Beatles' influence on popular culture that culminates in a trip with my students to London, England, for three weeks in summer. The course gives me--a self-described anglophile--a chance to share my loves of music, history and mass communication with a motivated audience.

It also gives me a chance to buy "research material" that I'd otherwise put on a wish list for birthdays and Christmas.

Three months ago I went on such a research spree, buying a number music-related DVDs of 1950s and 1960s artists. Among my purchases was
"The Real Buddy Holly Story." The piece is narrated by my favorite artist, Paul McCartney, who produced the film that was originally released in 1987.

I've always liked Holly's music. Maybe it's the simplicity of a three-chord riff over an incessant drum beat that creates "Peggy Sue."
Maybe it's the idea that a group of kids from Lubbock, Texas, are not so different from one in North Carolina who wanted to play guitar and drums and pianos and coffee cans and five-gallon paint buckets in search of a tune.

My discovery of The Beatles cemented my fondness for the bespeckled Texan. After all, the fact that Holly and his Crickets influenced my
Beatles made me feel like I was part of the union. All I needed was my ASCAP card and I could hit the road.

Never mind I was only 12.

Although I've known Holly's music for a long time, I've never really known much about the man behind the glasses. I knew about his Texas
beginnings and I could name the members of The Crickets. And in 1979, when my mother married a man from Clear Lake, Iowa, I found out about
Holly's last performance at the Surf Ballroom and the crash of a chartered plane that ended the musician's life.

So when a February 3 ice storm made my drive into an Olympic luge course, I cancelled my classes and set up residence on the couch in
front of the fire to read, nap and watch my day away. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when I remembered the Holly DVD I had purchased months
ago, but hadn't watched. I popped the disc into the player and turned on the surround sound.

I had a good time learning about Holly's rise to fame from very humble beginnings. I had an even better time watching McCartney pay tribute
to one of his idols. All the while I couldn't help but feel sad about Holly's death and wonder what he would've produced had he lived.

The film was about 10 minutes away from ending when a yearbook-style picture of Holly appeared on the screen. The camera panned down a list
of the singer's attributes. His birth date, first hit record, likes, and dislikes scrolled up the frame until the motion stopped on the cold winter day Holly died: February 3, 1959.

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The wind is blowing outside and I've returned from my rock 'n' roll nostalgia trip to put away the DVDs and to prepare dinner. I've stoked
the fire, and fed the dogs. But I have to look outside one more time before the fading light hides the dense swirling fog.

Surely the guitar strum I hear is only the winter wind moving through the mists of 45 years.

It's February 3 today, and Buddy, Richie and J.P Richardson are 46 years in their graves at this writing. Look at where music has gone, and think about where it could have gone. I will always be too young to truly appreciate the first era of rock and roll. But thanks to DVDs, CDs, interviews, and most important, the music, I have an idea of what it was like.
The music. The music is the best time capsule of that decade. If you listen to the right music. And Buddy captured it so well, think about the how the time capsules (in concerning music) would have been changed. Think about how the music today would have been different without The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, even recent groups of the 80's and 90's. Would they have been without Buddy? Would there be another artist that would have gained more importance in history had there not been Buddy?
Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holley really did have a gift like no other. Have you ever realized how many Elvis impersonation contests there are, yet there are no official Buddy Holly impersonator contests? It's because it can't be done. Oh, you can try, and it may be a good attempt, but Buddy was special. Thank you Buddy, for gracing us with your prensence. Maybe it was hard to be appreciated in your time, but thank you all the same for loving rock and roll, loving music so much, that you would even die for it. Keep rocking heaven, with Waylon and Niki, and I don't doubt you've found a drummer to fill in. Nothing as trival as that stopped you in life. Rave On, Buddy, and all those who make an effort to remember him.
May God rest Richie Valens, J.P. Richardson, and Charles Hardin Holley. Sadly it seems only the good die young.

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