Buddy Holly

Memorial Collection
$29.98
This 3 CD Buddy Holly collection CD with is in many ways a great release. Generally these old recordings have never sounded better. Even the very early 1955-56 recordings sound really good.

The music is obviously great and the songs come chronological order, giving a good opportunity to get an impression of Holly's musical development through his, unfortunately, short career.

Holly was with his group the Crickets during 1957 frequent visitors in the studio and after their breakthrough with "That'll Be the Day" and the successors "Oh Boy" and "Peggy Sue", the group had actually recorded enough material to release two albums. The record company Coral decided to release two albums: one as a Buddy Holly solo album, and a second as a band-release with Buddy Holly and the Crickets. In fact it is the same people who are involved on the two albums and it is probably more or less a coincidence whether the songs ended up on one or the other album.

This CD release is missing only a few tracks from the two excellent albums. Actually three albums with Buddy Holly were released in the course of 1958; the third "That'll Be the Day" consisted of earlier recordings, made with different musical line-ups. This too, certainly was a solid release, and also from this album most songs can be found on this new release.

Holly's last studio recordings, most of which ended up on the singles released during 1958-59, along with his home recordings from December 58 and January 1959, show that Holly was in a rapid musical development, and that his songwriting talent had only just begun to shine.

These "apartment" songs are among Holly's most beautiful recordings, and even without the well-known overdubs, songs like "Learning the Game," "What to Do," "Dearest" and "Crying, Waiting, hoping" are at least as strong as the studio recordings.

The accompanying booklet is very informative, especially in terms of the musicians involved in the individual recordings.

Only very few of Holly's best recordings are missing. Personally I would have like to see "Bo Diddley", "Come Back Baby", "Love is Strange", "Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie" and "Gone" included too.

All in all a grand release that can be warmly recommended.

That'll Be The Day
$0.99

Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly
$21.28
I think this book does a fair job of serving its purpose, which is to describe the various recording sessions and methods used to record his music over the years. I think it's necessary to add a little biography to either end for a little perspective, and certainly to gain some perspective on Norman Petty's role in the major recording sessions. Whatever his role in Buddy's money situation, it appears he contributed a lot to the recording techniques that were used in the studio and to what Buddy learned about recording techniques along the way. The most interesting thing that I learned from this book were the back story and the techniques used to record "Peggy Sue." The back story itself will, of course, appear in any biography, but the recording techniques were absolutely fascinating.

What did NOT impress me about this book was how the author took conjecture about some of the people in the book and turned it into "fact." As noted by another reviewer, the author did use the Ellis Amburn book as a source, which most know as a bad source of information. However, the author here did acknowledge the Amburn book as a poor source of information, being full of errors as it is. I think he recognizes the necessity of pulling information from more than one source, particularly if the source is known to be unreliable. It would have been better if he had acknowledged all dubious information in this manner, however.

And, by the way, I lived in Lubbock for many years, too. The whole West Texas area has an amazing amount of musical talent, the most famous and successful of which have plaques at the base of Buddy's statue in Lubbock: Waylon Jennings and Roy Orbison, for example (of course). Almost no one not from Lubbock really "gets it." Even Philip Norman didn't get it right when he said Meadow was north of Lubbock in his biography of Buddy. I guess he had the map upside down. To outsiders, Lubbock is flat, treeless, smelly, and boring. The rest of us know better. We planted all the trees, the smell means money (and you don't even notice it after a while anyway), flat means you can see the sunsets and sunrises better, and boring? Absolutely not. That's how we got Buddy Holly. In the fall, everything turns red and black. And for a while, we even had Bobby Knight shooting people in the foot and throwing salads in the grocery store. How could that possibly be boring? And just in case we produce another Buddy...or Waylon, or Richie McDonald or god-forbid another Natalie Maines (just kidding - she's very talented), there's a very active Depot District with plenty of live music venues. (I won't go so far as to say Buddy ever fronted for Elvis, but a friend insists Buddy's brother had to front them some money to get into a movie when Elvis was in town once, though. He says that came straight from the mouth of Buddy's brother himself. Between us, we've met a few of the Holleys a time or two.)

And just when you thought she picked up her ball and went home, it looks like Maria Elena is giving Lubbock a "gift" by returning the Buddy Holly Festival to Lubbock sometime in the near future. Any negative feelings for her aside, Buddy deserves the recognition and new talent deserves the opportunity to find a spotlight. Lets hope it all works out this time.

Essential Masters (digital)
$9.99
There's not much I can say about Buddy Holly or his music that any fan of his doesn't already know. His all too brief career, tragic death and groundbreaking look and sound have influenced everyone from The Beatles to Elvis Costello (and not just the glasses). His catalogue of music is well represented on this album and, thankfully, un-tinkered with except that the sound quality has been digitally remastered and improved. His songs have never sounded better or fresher. A must for old fans or first-timers.