Buddy Holly: Chronological Chart of His 50 Greatest Recordings

Buddy Holly was arguably the greatest of all the 50s rock and roll stars, judging by overall talent. He was one of the very best songwriters and guitar players of the era and had a wonderful voice and singular vocal style. He managed -- in a time of intense musical creativity -- to create a sound almost uniquely his own. His band was about as good as Elvis's. He could rock almost as well as Little Richard.

No one else had all these different aspects of musical genius wrapped up in one person. Elvis didn't write songs. Little Richard wrote some, but they (like Chuck Berry's and Fats Domino's and Carl Perkins' and Bo Diddley's songs) were much more monolithic in style than Buddy Holly's were: oftentimes little more than a variation on a theme. Jerry Lee Lewis, in retrospect, was a mere flash-in-the-pan. Buddy Holly was also that rare figure (like Elvis) who appealed equally to both men and women. Someone wrote that he essentially introduced "sweetness" and romanticism into rock and roll. Yet he could also rock with the best of them.

And (perhaps most remarkably of all) he did all this in about three years' time. He died tragically at age 22 in a plane crash in February 1959, along with seventeen-year-old Ritchie Valens (who had hits with La Bamba and Donna) and J.P. Richardson ("The Big Bopper" of Chantilly Lace fame, who also wrote Running bear, the 1960 hit for Johnny Preston). This tragedy was the subject of Don McLean's 1971 hit song American Pie). His recordings can almost be divided into three broad categories, by year: 1956 was his rockabilly period, 1957 marked a move to more straight-ahead rock and roll (starting with his first big hit, That'll be the day), and 1958 featured mostly pop arrangements (some even with strings).

One of my many recent CD-burning projects was to arrange Buddy Holly's best songs chronologically, according to recording date. I located a complete discography online (based on Marc Alesina's research), and cross-checked the dates there with those listed on my two anthologies (The Buddy Holly Collection and The Singles + -- for those unfamiliar with Buddy's work, or who only know a few songs, you can listen to samples on these amazon.com pages). These two collections provided most of the 50 songs I have selected, with the exception of some rare late-released tracks, which I had on a 1983 record called For the First Time Anywhere.

The rarest recordings in my own compilation are the first overdubbed versions of Buddy's final recordings, which he made in his apartment in December 1958. After his death, they were overdubbed two or more times. Personally, I don't care for the 1963 overdubs done by Norman Petty (who produced many of the earlier recordings). To me, these sound weird, contrived, and not true to the likely style that Buddy Holly would have used for these songs, nor were they the way I first heard the songs in the late 70s, when I started really liking this music, after the 1978 biographical movie came out.

Unfortunately, both of the major compilations mentioned above have the later overdubs, but I prefer the ones done in 1959 and 1960 in the Coral studios, by Jack Hansen. I had recorded these off of some early two-record collection (I don't even recall the name) that I rented from a local library, in 1978 or 1979. I later re-recorded them onto a second cassette tape, so the CD recordings of those songs that I just made are fourth-generation, but I say, "I'd rather have a lesser recording of a better version than a better recording of a poorer version." Perhaps one day I'll find them again in a used record store or something.

Here is a comment I made a few years back about Peggy Sue: my favorite song of Buddy Holly's:

The masterpiece of an extraordinary two-year period of musical success cut short tragically by a plane crash. This is the quintessential percussion-driven song of its period (and maybe of any other as well). The relentless drums are the central feature (and you usually didn't hear the lower drums much on early rock records), but also notable are Holly's playful, enthusiastic, unique vocals and incredible power-chorded guitar solo (his playing was technically better than even Chuck Berry's and perhaps the equal of Carl Perkins'). A timeless classic on first hearing and every
time thereafter.

I love compiling songs by recording date because you can more easily take notice of the developing musical style and similar sounds. And you learn fascinating facts: such as, e.g., that Peggy Sue, Listen to me, Oh boy, and I'm gonna love you too were all recorded on the same day: 1 July 1957. That's an awesome day's work! Other notes of interesting trivia: the dates reveal that the Crickets group only played on records from March 1957 to May 1958: a mere 15 months. And Buddy Holly played lead guitar only from January 1957 to February 1958 (!). This was also the period of time of most of the records that are considered his "classics." His guitar playing was superb (listen, e.g., to I'm lookin' for someone to love), but for some reason, many lead guitar parts were played by Sonny Curtis in the earlier period, and Tommy Allsup in 1958. Go figure . . .

It's also fun to talk about "soundalikes" of Buddy Holly. In my opinion, the closest that others got to reproducing his sound were the records Sheila, by Tommy Roe (obviously inspired by Peggy Sue, but an excellent, irresistibly catchy record in its own right), I fought the law, by the Bobby Fuller Four (an uncanny voice resemblance, written by Sonny Curtis, and that band was from Texas, too), and Take good care of my baby, by Bobby Vee (who cut two albums with the Crickets in the early 60s). Vee even tried to copy the trademark "hiccupping" vocals in his other Holly-like song Rubber ball, but suffice it to say that only Buddy Holly could do that.

Also, Words of Love by the Beatles is almost a carbon copy of the original: so much respect did the Beatles have for Buddy (and some say that the "Beatles" name was derived from "Crickets"). George Harrison takes great pains to reproduce the guitar solo from the original Crying, Waiting, Hoping (earlier overdub), in the Beatles' affectionate cover of that song on their Live at the BBC album. It is arguable that Holly and Carl Perkins were the most influential on Harrison's classic "early Beatles" guitar style (whereas Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is obviously a Chuck Berry fanatic).

Now, for the chart itself. The symbols described below will give you just about all the information you ever wanted or needed to know about Buddy Holly recordings, including musicians, songwriting credit, studios used, inclusion on albums, etc. All dates are recording dates (as best I could ascertain)

The Crickets:

Buddy Holly : vocals, lead guitar
Niki Sullivan : (sometimes) rhythm guitar
Joe B. Mauldin : string bass
Jerry Allison : drums
[backing vocals were usually overdubbed later]

* written by Buddy Holly
o lead guitar by Buddy Holly
+ with the Crickets
++ with the Crickets, including Niki Sullivan, rhythm guitar
# recorded in Clovis, New Mexico (Norman Petty, producer)
= recorded in Nashville
x lead guitar by Sonny Curtis
~ lead guitar by Tommy Allsup
c on The "Chirping" Crickets album (1957)
b on the Buddy Holly album (1957)

[if no recording date is listed for a song, it was recorded on the above previously-listed date]
========================================

o Soft place in my heart 4-55
*o Down the line mid-55
=x* Love me 1-26-56
=x* Don't come back knockin'
=x Midnight shift
=x Blue days black nights
#x* Baby won't you come out tonight 4-56
#*o Because I love you
#x* Changing all those changes
#x* I'm gonna set my foor down
#o It's not my fault
#*o Rock-a-bye rock
=x Rock around with Ollie Vee 7-22-56
= Modern Don Juan 11-15-56
o Brown-eyed handsome man 12-56 / 1-57
o Bo Diddley
c#*o I'm lookin' for someone to love 2-25-57
c#*o That'll be the day
c#+o Last night 3-12-57
b#+*o Words of love 4-8-57
b#+o Mailman bring me no more blues
c#+*o Not fade away 5-29-57
b#+*o Everyday
c#++*o Tell me how 7-57
b#+*o Peggy Sue 7-1-57
b#+*o Listen to me
c#+o Oh boy
b#+o I'm gonna love you too
c#++ Send me some lovin' 7-19-57
c#+o It's too late
c++o An empty cup 9-28-57
c++*o Maybe baby
+ That's my desire 1-25-58
b+ Rave on
#+*o Well . . . all right 2-12-58
#+*o Think it over 2-14-58
#~+* It's so easy 5-25-58
#~+* Lonesome tears
#~ Heartbeat
#~* Love's made a fool of you 6-2-58
#~* Wishing
* True love ways 10-21-58
It doesn't matter anymore
Raining in my heart
Moondreams
* What to do 12-3-58 / overdubbed on 1-1-60
* Peggy Sue got married 12-5-58 / overdubbed on 6-30-59
* That makes it tough 12-8-58 / overdubbed on 1-1-60
* Crying, waiting, hoping 12-14-58 / overdubbed on 6-30-59
* Learning the game 12-17-58 / overdubbed on 1-1-60