4. BUDDY HOLLY
After nearly 60 years of mythmaking, the first thing that stands out about Buddy Holly’s music is the astounding ratio of hits to duds in his relatively meager catalog. The albums released during his lifetime don’t even add up to 90 minutes of music. The second is how vital his songs still seem: structurally sound, lyrically sharp, rhythmically dynamic — essential rock ’n’ roll. Holly was only 22 when
his plane went down, but he was an experienced musician with a good enough reputation around Lubbock that his pre-Crickets band, the country duo Buddy & Bob, opened for Elvis there in February 1955. It only grew from there. The Beatles named themselves as a nod to the Crickets; “Not Fade Away” became a staple of Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead set lists; and Elvis Costello adopted Holly’s style of thick-framed eyeglasses. Holly also seeded a fertile music scene on the South Plains that produced his protégé Waylon Jennings — who gave up his seat on that fateful plane ride due to illness — Joe Ely, Terry Allen, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. In the December 2014 issue of the Oxford American, Ely recalled: “We’d go out to Buddy Holly’s grave with a case of beer and sit out all night singing Buddy Holly songs.” Most Texas musical moment: “That’ll Be the Day” a line in 1956’s “The Searchers” that was good enough for John Wayne (and John Ford), and Buddy Holly, too.