Background
Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936 inLubbock, Texas, United States. He was the son of Lawrence Odell Holley, a tailor, and Ella Pauline Drake.
musician singer record producer
Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936 inLubbock, Texas, United States. He was the son of Lawrence Odell Holley, a tailor, and Ella Pauline Drake.
By 1955, after graduating from high school, Holly decided to pursue a full-time career in music.
On his first record contract Holly's name was misspelled without the "e, " and he left it that way. He began to play the piano at the age of eleven but was soon concentrating solely on the guitar. With a high school friend, Bob Montgomery, he formed a country and western duo, which was heard on Lubbock radio during Holly's junior year. By the time Holly was fifteen, "Buddy and Bob" were in demand for local club work. Holly also worked part-time as a draftsman and printer. In 1954 Holly and Montgomery recorded eight songs in a typical country vein, almost all of them written and sung by Montgomery. Nothing came of this effort (the recording was not released until after Holly's death), and they returned to the Lubbock area. Late the next year "Buddy and Bob, " by then one of the leading acts in the area, were selected to open a traveling show featuring Bill Haley. They were seen by Eddie Crandall, a Nashville talent agent, who then had the act prepare a demonstration recording that he gave to Jim Denny, another talent agent, to peddle to record companies. Soon after, Decca Records invited Holly to Nashville to record for them. Montgomery was not invited, and the act was dissolved.
In January 1956 Holly went to Nashville, where Denny produced and provided studio musicians. The songs recorded were in the rockabilly style made popular by Elvis Presley. A single, "Love Me, " was released, backed by "Blue Days, Black Nights. " It failed to sell. Holly returned to Nashville in June and November--the first time with his own backup group, the Three Tunes--with similar results. At this time he began writing more of his own material. None of his recordings was particularly outstanding, however, and his relationship with Decca was severed.
Late in 1956 Holly assembled the Crickets, consisting of guitarist Niki Sullivan, bassist Joe Mauldin, and drummer Jerry Allison. He took this group to Norman Petty's recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico, where he and Petty soon decided to work together; Petty's production and management proved the difference for Holly. The first step was to get a recording contract, and Petty made an unusual move. He negotiated a contract with Brunswick Records for the Crickets and another contract with Coral Records for "Buddy Holly, with instrumental accompaniment. " The main personnel were the same on both labels, but the styles differed slightly. The Crickets were a typical group with lead vocals and supporting harmonies, a lineup that Presley was then successfully exploiting. The Buddy Holly records were more advanced, in that his voice was double-tracked and a greater variety of instruments was used. This division was rather loose, and Holly proved successful on both labels. Under Petty's guidance Holly began to develop a distinctive style. While clearly rooted in the country and western tradition, his vocal inflections and mannerisms were unusual and began to draw attention.
The first Buddy Holly record, "Words of Love, " released in June 1957, did not sell well; but the first Crickets record, "That'll Be the Day, " released around the same time, sold well over a million copies, reaching the number one position in the United States and staying on the best-selling charts for twenty-one weeks. A rock and roll classic, "That'll Be the Day, " recorded at the Nashville sessions, was completely redone. In 1958 Holly had big hits with "Peggy Sue" and "Raye On, " and a smaller hit with "Early in the Morning, " under his own name. With the Crickets, "Oh Boy, " "Maybe Baby, " and "It's So Easy" were successful. The band made several television appearances and coast-to-coast tours, and toured Australia in February and England in March 1958.
His single "Heartbeat, " released late that year, failed to sell well; and it appeared that he had peaked. He amicably ended his association with the Crickets and made his next recordings in New York with Dick Jacobs' Orchestra and Chorus, assembling a new backup band for live appearances.
One of the first major rock stars to use strings, Holly seemed to be moving toward a stance as a nightclub entertainer. Rock and roll elements predominated in some of the later songs, such as "Peggy Sue Got Married, " however, and it is unclear in what direction his music was evolving. In 1959 Holly joined "The Biggest Show of Stars for 1959, " a touring group. After a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, he chartered a plane, along with rock stars Ritchie Valens and J. P. ("Big Bopper") Richardson, to the next stop in Fargo, North Dakota. Early in the morning of February 3, the plane crashed outside Mason City, Iowa, and all were killed.
Holly was a major figure in the first flowering of rock and roll, in the years 1956-1958. What his music shared with the other leading artists of the period--most notably Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis--was that it was full of energy. When Holly died, and when these other artists subsequently left rock and roll for various reasons, the music went into doldrums that lasted until the appearance of the similarly energetic Beatles in 1963. Holly's trademarks were the cheerful, rolling "Tex-Mex" sound of his native area and his use of varying vocal inflections in a single song, in particular a "hiccuping" effect, so that "Sue" became "Sue-a-oo. " Other distinctive features of his music included an optimistic tone in the singing--even when the subject matter was sad--and songs that sounded countryish yet emphasized drumming, unlike traditional country music. Holly's importance, however, was not just in his music but in his total image and in the impact that it had on his listeners and on future musicians. His ordinary appearance combined with his thin young voice to give his music an anyone-can-do-it feeling that was of great importance in the early years of rock and roll. His tragic death at the age of twenty-two helped create a mystique about him. Holly's influence can be heard in the music of Bobby Vee and Tommy Roe. More popular in England than America after his death, he was revered as a major influence by English rock and roll musicians. His two genuine rock and roll classics, "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue, " rendered him one of the new music's first legends. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Holly among its first class in 1986. In 1997, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave Holly the Lifetime Achievement Award. Holly was inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2010, Grant Speed's statue was taken down for refurbishment and construction of a new Walk of Fame began. On May 9, 2011, the City of Lubbock held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Buddy and Maria Elena Holly Plaza, the new home of the statue and the Walk of Fame. The same year, a star bearing Holly's name was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, commemorating his 75th birthday.
Holly had an ordinary appearance and wore unattractive, thick black-rimmed glasses. Later that style became known as "Buddy Holly glasses. "
On August 15, 1958, Holly married Maria Elena Santiago; they had no children.
