39th Annual Grammy Awards Program Book

Lifetime Achievement Award - Buddy Holly

In recent decades, much has been written about early rock and roll's impact on American society and culture. But back in the '50s, when Buddy Holly records were brand new, there was hardly any such thing as a "serious" rock and roll fan. Almost nobody thought about rock and roll in an analytical way. I was only five years old, so I never did. But what I did know was that those maroon-and-orange-labeled 45s with Buddy Holly's name inscribed on them were the ones that got me the most excited, the ones I'd ask my teenage cousins and neighbors to play over and over again.

Especially the B-sides, which in Holly's case could be even more intriguing than the A-sides. Playing "Peggy Sue," I'd hear that jungle drumbeat rumbling in and out of an echo chamber, along with an electric guitar sound (a Fender Stratocaster) that at that time was unprecedented (and to me, unbelievable). Turn it over and there was "Everyday" with its delicate, intimate sounds (a celeste, bare hands on knees keeping time) and half-whispered vocal (something about "going faster than a roller coaster"). Buddy Holly records just seemed to come from their own universe somewhere.

And they did: Holly's records emanated from Clovis, New Mexico, an environment said to be full of intrigue and subterfuge. (David Lynch should have made "The Buddy Holly Story.") When I visited Norman Petty's studio there in 1991, I saw the apartment in the back where Buddy and his band, The Crickets, would crash out after sessions, the ten-cent Coke machine, the entrance way where they set up the drums for "Peggy Sue", and all kinds of beautiful old Ampex, RCA, Altec and Neumann recording gear. Buddy Holly was the first rock and roll artist to really set up camp in a studio, approaching the recording process with a sense of adventure and fun while producing a focused body of work all in one place at one time.

One of my favorite things that I've learned about ‘50s rock and roll is that it was, to a very significant extent, a consciously anti-racist phenomena. People like Buddy Holly, Alan Freed, Little Richard and Chuck Berry were all out for a good time, but they were by no means shallow or one-dimensional. They knew they were challenging taboos and breaking rules that needed to be broken. When Buddy Holly took Little Richard and King Curtis to his parents' house in Lubbock, Texas for dinner (so the stories go), and when he married Maria Elena Santiago, he was doing what his heart told him to do. And that takes a lot of balls sometimes.

Buddy Holly's talents bloomed in an environment that was less than nurturing: Rock and roll artists were being condemned by an establishment that saw them as agents of subversion, and manipulated by businessmen who treated them as disposable commodities ripe for exploration. And so it was that, hit records notwithstanding, Buddy Holly was broke in January of 1959, and left with no choice but to go out on "The Winter Dance Party" tour, which, to read about it now, sounds like it was deliberately designed as an instrument of Death. The performers traveled through the frozen Midwest in old converted school buses with bad heaters and faulty engines. While trying to (briefly) escape these conditions (and get his stage clothes laundered), Buddy Holly, as everyone knows, died, at the age of 22, in a plane crash along with Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson. It was a hideous fate for a guy who'd made some of the most joyful, celebratory music in recording history.

Now Buddy Holly's music has endured for almost a half-century and he's recognized as one of the finest American artists of his time. In the words of Keith Richards, "This is not bad for a guy from Lubbock."

-- Marshall Crenshaw

Marshall Crenshaw played Buddy Holly in the 1991* film, "La Bamba." He has written songs for Bette Midler, The Gin Blossoms, Was (Not Was) and others. His current album, "Miracle Of Science," is nominated for a Grammy for Best Recording Package this year.

[*La Bamba was released in 1987, this was mis-printed in the Grammy Awards Program Book]