Buddy Holly: The Music Lives

Unfortunately, when people recall Charles Hardin Holley, aka Buddy Holly, many think first of the plane crash in which he, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens died, fifty years ago today. That’s a shame because Buddy’s music was about life, about living bigger than a Cadillac. Buddy’s Sound was not about death. Nor was Buddy about “raging against the machine.” Buddy said, “move over, give me the keys to that machine, I want to see how fast I can make it go.” Buddy’s music is a Yes, not a No. 

Perhaps more than any other fifties rock and roller, Buddy displayed a capacity for growth, for pushing the boundaries of The Sound. At the time of Buddy’s death he was living in New York City, married to a young woman born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and hanging out in coffeehouses, where he listened to beat poetry and flamenco guitar; at the same time he had booked a steel guitar player for the recording session that he didn’t survive to attend. Buddy was both growing in new directions and sinking his roots deeper into that fertile American earth from which The Sound had sprung. Who knows what great music this restless creative spirit would have brought forth in the sixties and seventies? Maybe in Heaven Buddy will play us all a new song. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: big bopper, Buddy Holly, elvis, rage against the machine, rave on
Posted Feb 3rd 2009 at 2:00 pm in Entertainment | 4003824 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlima/2009/02/03/the-music-lives/Buddy+Holly%3A+The+Music+Lives2009-02-03+22%3A00%3A13Joe+Lima