Buddy Holly: The man who put the beat in Beatles

Jan 12 2009 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool Rock 'n' Roll archivist Spencer Leigh _158

As a new book about the songwriting genius is released, Spencer Leigh explores Buddy Holly’s influence on our own most famous band

THE Liverpool-dominated beat boom of the early 1960s was, and still is, the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to British popular music. Its reverberations are heard today as each new successful British band is hailed as the latest Beatles, and each new songwriter as the new Lennon or McCartney.

But, in the early stages at least, the Liverpool music was decidedly second-hand. Every group covered American rock ’n’ roll, rhythm and blues, and sometimes country songs. The strongest single influence on The Beatles was Buddy Holly, so much so that it seemed that Lubbock, Texas, was only a ferry ride away.

Buddy Holly was born in Lubbock on September 7, 1936. Unlike Liverpool, the city offered little cultural life, but Buddy found friends with similar interests and he loved the new rock ’n’ roll music that he heard on the radio.

After a few false starts, his talent was nurtured by Norman Petty, who owned a studio 90 miles away in Clovis, New Mexico and, from the middle of 1957, he cut a succession of glorious singles with his group, The Crickets, including a UK Number 1, That’ll Be The Day, as well as Peggy Sue, Oh Boy! and Maybe Baby. Almost exclusively, Buddy sang about the ups and downs of teenage love.

In March, 1958, Buddy visited the UK for a month-long tour. Young British musicians were turning away from acoustic skiffle music and wanting something new, and here was Buddy Holly with a Fender Stratocaster, a space age instrument which could not even be bought in the UK.

“I saw Buddy Holly at the Phil and, from that night onwards, everything I learned, everything I played, was based on Holly,” says Mike Pender, of The Searchers. “Groups now have banks of amplifiers and speakers all over the place, but Holly came on stage with just a double-bass, drums and an amplifier. He didn’t have sex appeal and he wasn’t that good-looking but he brought the house down.”

Although John, Paul and George had a shared passion for Buddy Holly, they were not at the Phil. The booking coincided with the opening night of the Morgue skiffle cellar in Oakhill Park, and the Quarrymen were either playing or trying to curry favour with its management.

The Quarrymen were performing sporadically, and the plaque on 38 Kensington shows that they recorded there during the summer. They performed That’ll Be The Day, and they took turns in owning the record and playing it to their friends.

When Holly returned to the States, he was experimenting with Heartbeat and It’s So Easy. He cut Rave On in New York and had a string session for It Doesn’t Matter Any More, Raining In My Heart and a song for his bride, True Love Ways. He recorded some new songs in their apartment, including Crying, Waiting, Hoping and Learning The Game.