What If: Buddy Holly Lived?

Buddy Holly: Crying, Waiting, Hoping (Apartment Tapes version)
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This may be the hardest theme we’ve tackled here, and I’ll take responsibility for it, for better or worse. As a history major in college, and general history buff, I’ve also been a fan of “alternative history,” where one historical fact changes, and you speculate on how things might have been different. One good recent example of this was the HBO series, The Plot Against America (and the 2004 Philip Roth novel that it was based on), which launches from the premise that Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 election. I’ve also read a ton of “what if the South won the Civil War” fiction, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me or has read my writing. 

But, as I often have to remind myself, this is a music blog, so we are going think about what would have happened if Buddy Holly’s plane hadn’t crashed on that cold February morning in 1959 in Iowa. I’m no Holly expert (although I’ve done some reading about his career), so I’m under no impression that this might be a “definitive” discussion. And because I’m not writing a piece of speculative fiction, and have to therefore pick one path and follow it, we’ll look at a few possibilities, focused more on Holly’s potential career than his potential effect on music as a whole (or the effect of the deaths of the others who were on the plane that day). 

In "American Pie," Don McLean famously referred to the crash that killed Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson, Jr.), and pilot Roger Peterson, as the “day the music died,” but while that’s a great and memorable lyric, of course, it wasn’t. Most notably, two big Holly fans in Liverpool had recently formed a band named after an insect, in tribute to Holly’s band, the Crickets, and had Holly not died that day, I’m pretty confident that Beatlemania still would have swept through the world a few years later, changing the musical landscape forever, and pushing aside the type of “rock ‘n’ roll” music that Holly and his ilk had made popular (even as the Beatles covered Holly’s songs live and on record). In fact, I’d wager that had Holly lived, he would have been a fan of the Beatles, and even worked with them in some form—maybe writing songs with or for them or performing with them, or releasing his own Beatles covers (everyone else did). But probably not producing the Beatles, since they already had a pretty fair producer. (And don’t forget that the Rolling Stones covered “Not Fade Away” on their first album.) 

Another huge Holly fan was Bob Dylan, who actually saw Holly on the ill-fated Winter Dance Party tour in Duluth, MN, about 3 days before the crash, and referenced Holly as his first musical influence in his Nobel Prize lecture. So, again, Holly’s death wouldn’t have prevented Dylan’s rise and influence on music, and again, I’d bet that they might have collaborated—or at least, become acquainted—particularly after Dylan began to perform regularly in New York. You can easily imagine Holly, with Maria Elena, and maybe a friend like Phil Everly or Waylon Jennings, trying to watch the young Dylan incognito from the back of the club, and being impressed by his talents. 

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. 

One way of looking at this question is by starting by analyzing Holly’s life and music before he died. In late 1958, Holly and wife Maria Elena, moved to Greenwich Village, in part to get a new start, but also to get involved in the New York music scene of the time. Holly, who was not only a musical genius, but appeared to have a more sophisticated business sense than many of his contemporaries, wanted to start his own label and open his own studio. So, maybe, part of Holly’s future would have been as a music executive and producer of other acts. 

During this period, Holly explored his love for jazz, regularly frequenting jazz clubs in the Village and elsewhere in the city. And he would go down to Washington Square Park and play with the other musicians hanging out there. The last formal recording session that Holly participated in was in New York, in collaboration with the Dick Jacobs Orchestra, recording four songs with heavy string orchestration. So, by some analyses, at this point, Holly was moving away from the stripped down rock ‘n’ roll that made him famous to a more sophisticated, smooth pop sound. For example, one of these songs, Paul Anka’s “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” might have presaged a future career for Holly as another Anka-style pop singer. 

At the same time, though, Holly was recording himself in his living room—what have later become known as the “Apartment Tapes,” and from these, you can hear Holly working both on his songwriting and lyrical craft, but also experimenting with tempo and styles. (Many of these demos were later overdubbed and released posthumously.) Add to this the reports that Holly planned to record with black artists such as Ray Charles, Mahalia Jackson and other soul singers (he was, memorably, the first white act to play Harlem’s Apollo Theater), and the prospect of Holly as a pop crooner becomes less likely. Nor do I see him turning to Vegas, like his friend Elvis Presley.

Another way to look at it is to consider the careers of two other musicians who were on the Winter Dance Party tour, but declined to get on the plane—Waylon Jennings, who was Holly’s bass player on the tour and gave up his seat to the Big Bopper, who was sick, and Dion DiMucci, who didn’t want to spend the extra money. There are some who think that Holly’s future, had he survived, would have been to move more toward country music, like Jennings, considering his Texas roots and twang. But I don’t think that Holly would have wanted to be so limited, because his musical tastes were so broad. Dion, of course, had early success, but when that faded, changed his sound to a more mature folk/pop approach, before moving through a Christian music phase, and more recently, focusing on blues, and I suspect that Holly, too, would have kept trying different things. 

Ultimately, I don't think that Holly would have become an “oldies” act, performing versions of his hits to aging fans. Instead, I think that Holly would have gone on to a varied career—writing songs for himself and others, in various styles that would have reflected his curiosity, interests and the new sounds that were developing in the 1960s and 70s, producing and nurturing artists, and continuing to perform new music for years.

Hidden Places: Dirty Blvd.

Lou Reed: Dirty Blvd.
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I’m sure that I was listening to some song that mentioned some place that wasn’t in the title when I thought of this theme, but I suggested it so long ago that I can’t remember what song it was. So, when I tried to figure out what to write about, I decided to write about my favorite city. The city that I’ve loved since my father brought me into Manhattan from my birthplace in Queens when I was a little kid, to go to museums, and magic shows, and just to walk around and spend time with him. Where I’d go with him to court, or to hang out in his office. And when I got older, where I’d sometimes come with friends, to go to the theater or museums or restaurants or ball games. Where I went to law school, lived for almost a decade, met my wife and started a family. And where I worked until a few years ago, commuting on the train after moving the suburbs, and loving the excitement and bustle of New York. Except on the night they lit the Rockefeller Center tree, which made my usual 10 minute walk to the train an ordeal. I miss New York, having started working from home back in 2013, and I miss it even more now, when thinking about going to the City raises all sorts of new issues. (Interestingly, in 2013, I wrote about another song from the same album, although strangely as a tribute to my suburban home).

I have a “New York” playlist on iTunes, and the rules, such as they are, are that the song has to mention New York City, or some part of the City, or at least some recognizable location or feature of the City. I’m guessing that I’ve missed a few, but it currently has over 500 songs on it. It’s possible that no artist has more songs on the list than Lou Reed, who was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island, but has long been associated with New York from his move to the City in 1964 to be a songwriter, and especially from his co-founding the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground was, of course, part of the New York underground scene around Andy Warhol and his “Factory,” and more than a few of their songs were about the seedy, druggy underbelly of New York, such as “I’m Waiting For The Man,” a tale of scoring drugs on Lexington Avenue and 125th Street in Harlem. 

Reed’s focus on New York continued after he started his solo career, including his biggest hit, “Walk On The Wild Side,” which mentions the city itself, and the Apollo Theater, and also referred to members of Warhol’s clique. Again, Reed focused not on the mainstream, but on the marginalized part of New York, because that was the life he was living and those were the people that he knew. 

For 1989’s New York album, Reed, approaching 50, and thus an elder statesman, put together an entire album of observations of the City. In fact, Reed’s liner notes instructed listeners to listen in one sitting, “as though it were a book or a movie” (although I know few people who read a book in one sitting, but you get the point). It’s a bleak album, about a bleak time in New York. I loved the album, although I have to admit that things for me were the opposite of bleak—I had a high paying job, a nice apartment, and best of all, I had been married to the love of my life for about four months. 

Still, I was able to appreciate Reed’s observations and lyrical wordplay, and the tight, stripped down, music from Reed, guitarist Mike Rathke, bassist Rob Wasserman and drummer Fred Maher (with some guests, including former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker), which was perfect for the songs. The album was critically acclaimed, and the single, and our featured song, “Dirty Blvd.” was a No1. hit on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart. 

“Dirty Blvd.” is not a hopeful song, by any stretch of the imagination, about Pedro, from a poor immigrant family who, because of the city’s (and country's) mistreatment of both those groups was destined to fail. It’s an angry song, contrasting the wealthy at Lincoln Center, only blocks from the rundown hotel where Pedro lives, with the difficulties of his life.  In one of the most memorable passages, Reed sings: 

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
that's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard 

By the way, guesting on background vocals on the song is another New Yorker, Dion DiMucci. 

Although since 1989 much more of Manhattan, and the other boroughs, are gentrified, and safer than back in the era described in New York, income inequality in the City, and elsewhere, is worse than ever. And the current administration’s anti-immigrant policies even led to one advisor, whose name I will not type, attempt to distance the Statue of Liberty from Emma Lazarus’ iconic verses. The album still holds up, mostly because of the music and lyrics, and also in part as a period piece and in part because of its timelessness. 

New York City has, like most of the country, taken a hit from the coronavirus and the failure of our national “leadership” to take appropriate action in face of the pandemic, but contrary to the recent statement from the liar in chief, it is far from a ghost town. My son and daughter-in-law stood on line for more than two hours the other day to vote, which is a lot of ghosts. In fact, although things are generally not going well, there’s some evidence that New York City is attracting new people, which it always has, from well before the days that my ancestors showed up here from eastern Europe (one, by way of England) before and just after World War I, and whose energy and vitality has always been fed by immigrants from other countries, and from other parts of the United States. 

[I found out late last night that yesterday, October 27, 2020, was the seventh anniversary of Reed's death, which didn't enter into my decision to write this piece.  But if I had known, I would have tried to post it earlier.  Oh, well.]

MUSICAL MYSTERIES: WHO DO YOU LOVE?

This is becoming topical, as the thoughts of our leaders turn to whether we, the great unwashed, albeit with very clean hands, can or should be crushed by the restarting wheels of industry. Which is more important, survival of the species or of the economy? With, as ever, the failure to appreciate the fairly solid link between the two. Maybe by both sides, but I am simply a medic, not a businessman. As I start writing, the Observer Sunday newspaper over here, the U.K., has published an opinion poll, stating a 4/5 majority wanting to err on the side of caution and to maintain the lockdown. However, many of the politicians are in the smaller subset, it seems and feels, with Boris uncharacteristically unforthcoming, with perhaps his throw of the dice having given him an unwelcome perspective, absent ahead of his hospitalisation. Anyway, one of the ideas out of lockdown is a concept of family 'bubbles', a named small list of family/friends with whom you may consort. So, who do you love? Enough?

The song is by Bo Diddley, the owlish rocker with glasses, often a bowler hat, funny shaped guitars and an unshakeable self-belief. Always looking for ways to aggrandise himself against his peers, the idea came to him as he witnessed a group of kids trying to outbrag each other. Full of arcane images to conjure up dread and a sense of mystery: rattlesnakes, skulls and graveyards, by showing he is the biggest baddest Daddy of all, he begs the question of his lover: Who do you love? With but one expected answer. Covered so many times over the years, I am sure we all think we know it, so the original may come as some surprise:

Bo Diddley

It doesn't even carry much of the trademark Diddley shuffle. That would come later. And it wasn't even a hit, at least for Bo. It took Ronnie Hawkins, the journeyman Canadian rocker, to get it charting, admittedly in his home country. The vocal is all swagger, dipping into a manic frenzy at each verse/chorus end. Not bad for 1963. Name mean anything? Ronnie Hawkins. And the Hawks. Yup, I can see that glimmer of recognition. Those Hawks, later the Band, with incendiary guitar from Robbie Robertson.This they reprised, with Hawkins, at their own zenith, for The Last Waltz.

Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks

Fast forward another five years, and we are in San Francisco. Local hipsters the Quicksilver Messenger Service were so taken with the song it became the entire second side of their second album, extends and interpreted into six separate "suites, blending live performance with studio work-outs. Indeed, so keen were the band on Diddley, they included another of his songs, Mona, on the flip.   With twin lead guitars and access to all sorts of stimulants, this was a heady and ambitious project. Arguably no small amount of pretension but, hey, it was 1968.

Quicksilver Messenger Service

I confess I knew none of these versions as they dropped, my first exposure being via short-lived UK rockers, Juicy Lucy. I was 12 and found their 1969 rendition, as ever on Top of the Pops, sinister and exciting. This group were unusual for this country in that they included pedal steel guitar, via one Glenn Campbell, not that one and no relation. Sadly it has dated badly, and my rifle back into their catalogue prove disappointing likewise.

Juicy Lucy

Now I am all grown up, my tastes have broadened and I especially love covers. So, rather than penning words, here's some of my favourites, not all from expected sources.

Townes Van Zandt

Tom Rush

Carlos Santana (with the Fabulous Thunderbirds)

Dr. Feelgood

Dion DiMucci

So, decision time, who do I love? Who's going to be in my bubble? And how do make it happen?

Who?

Buddy Holly: That’ll Be The Day

Buddy Holly: That’ll Be The Day
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A few days ago, I had a Skype video call with my daughter, who, as I mentioned in my last post, will be spending the year studying in Barcelona. All is going well in the first days, and she seems happy in her home-stay apartment, The call cut off a few times, due to Internet issues, and I was struck by the fact that we have reached a point where we get upset when our free video call with our daughter in Spain doesn’t work perfectly. It made me think about when I traveled in Europe during college, and had to go to some special call center to pay money to call my parents, probably to ask for money. Which reminds me that I was also upset that our attempts to arrange for Internet transfers of funds between my bank account and my daughter’s also didn’t go completely smoothly.

This, of course, has nothing to do with Buddy Holly, except that in my mind, Buddy Holly, who died in 1959, and my daughter, who was born in 1993, will always be linked. When she was 6 years old, we went to England for a week, and wanted to find a play on the West End that would interest her and her older brother. We got tickets for Buddy—The Buddy Holly Story. Considered to be the first “jukebox musical,” it was great (and more accurate than the Gary Busey-starring movie). My daughter fell in love with Holly’s music, and it is hard to blame her—he was a genius, whose unfortunately limited musical output still mostly stands up after all of these years. If you want to argue that the Beatles were the most influential musicians in rock music, that is fair, but it is no coincidence that the first song that The Quarrymen (the proto-Beatles) ever recorded was “That’ll Be The Day.” Or that their name was a tribute to Holly’s band, The Crickets.

At the time, my daughter’s school had an enrichment program called “Challenge,” and all of the students were required to do a research project for presentation at the “Creativity Fair.” You know, lots of smart, serious little kids, standing in front of trifold posterboard displays in the gym answering questions from earnest, well-meaning parents. My daughter decided to do hers about Buddy Holly. She immersed herself in his music, read some age-appropriate books and articles about him, and became an expert. Yours truly trolled eBay for cheap Buddy Holly memorabilia to add to her display.

Part of the project required the students to do an interview, which in this case seemed a bit difficult, when fate intervened. I found out that a lawyer I knew had become friendly with Dion DiMucci (of “Runaround Sue” fame). Dion had been a friend of Holly’s, and, in fact, turned down a seat on the ill-fated plane on that icy Iowa night, because it was too expensive. My contact convinced Dion to be interviewed, in writing, by my daughter, and he handwrote responses to the questions that she had come up with. Apparently, Holly loved the pizza in DiMucci’s native Bronx, because he couldn’t get anything like it back home in Lubbock. And, as I previously wrote, my daughter did a karaoke version of “That’ll Be The Day,” at a friend’s wedding.

Since then, my daughter’s musical tastes have predictably changed, but every once in a while, I know that she returns to Holly’s pure pop music.