Below is something I wrote in 2011, five years ago. I still play Buddy Holly music every week..he makes the wheels on an old Corvette and T-Bird run a lot smoother....Today--2016 he would actually be eighty years old..not possible....
LA
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Just some thoughts:
If he was still living today Buddy Holly would be seventy-five years old. He was born September 7, 1936.
"Buddy was born September 7, Labor Day, in the family's white-framed house at 1911 Sixth Street, in Lubbock, Texas. The day had dawned cloudy and overcast, but by the time Buddy arrived a gentle, southerly wind was blowing across the South Plains. Born at the end of an age when the bedroom still served as the delivery room, Charles Hardin Holley was named after both grandparents."
Buddy Holly---Ellis Amburn
I remember it like it was yesterday, February 3, 1959. I was a junior in high school and for some unknown reason our basketball coach cut basketball practice short that day, releasing the mighty Peppers (Pimento) to the public early that afternoon. We probably had "peeked" and he could do nothing further for our upcoming battle with Prairie Creek Gophers. As I walked into my bedroom that late afternoon, I turned on the little Philco radio on the stand next to my bed only to hear of the death of three "rock-n’-rollers," Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and Buddy Holly. All three along with the twenty-one year old pilot, Roger Peterson, lost their lives in a small plane crash after doing a show in Clear Lake, Iowa. Holly, just twenty-two at the time, has had a lasting effect on music, especially with the early British invasion, The Stones, The Beatles, etc. For us kids Holly was like no other teen music person. He died at twenty-two.
I saw him once, July 4th, 1958. He along with Frankie Avalon appeared at Buck Lake Ranch a picnic park just outside of Angola, Indiana. When we first saw him he was getting out of his car. He had on a white T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. I also remember the white socks. First impression was he appeared a bit nerdy with his black horn rimmed glasses. Later when he took the stage he appeared in a jacket and tie and when he started the music with that Stratocaster guitar of his "Oh Boy," that nerdy tag quickly disappeared for us. He and his group, the Crickets, came out of Lubbock, Texas. One fella even wrote a song about Holly's passing and told us this was "The day the music died." He once was described as "always in a hurry and always first to where ever he was going."
"Buddy's grave lies near a road that runs through the cemetery. A lone tree stands nearby. Beyond his grave looms a mammoth grain elevator with at least sixty silos. The original tombstone, an upright guitar, was stolen shortly after it was installed. The replacement stone lies flat against the earth and is more like a marker than a tombstone. The engraving is tasteful and appropriate----a Fender Stratocaster, some musical notes, and a few holly leaves. The inscription reads" "In loving memory of our own Buddy Holley--September 7, 1936--February 3, 1959"
I was almost seventeen years old when Holly died and now I'm almost seventy. This coming Monday night, September 12th , I will be standing in front of a stage at a ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin; and yeah, it will be like going back to another rock-n’- roll show from that time. At 9:45 p.m. I will see the "Original" Crickets on stage; and who knows, maybe Peggy Sue will even be there...
The sun is out, the sky is blue, there's not a cloud to spoil the view
but it's raining, raining in my heart, the weather man says clear today
he doesn't know you've gone away
misery, oh misery, what am I gonna do
To some degree I don't ever want to grow up.......I still remember the "Buddy Holly" days...
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September 7, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson