Buddy Holly's birthday, Sep. 7

Buddy Holly would be 72 if he was alive today.

A great innovator, gone before his time.

Happy Birthday Buddy

Who knows where he would have gone had he lived, guess we'll never know.

John6V6

One of the best, died so young !
Happy "birhtday" and rest in peace Buddy.
I hope "Peggy Sue" or "Oh Boy" tonite...

Thanks for reminding me...can't believe I almost forgot.

God bless you, Buddy! We sure miss you, but your music DEFINITELY lives on!

Rock on,
Bear85

I love remembering Buddy's birthday. So many people remember him only on February 3rd, the anniversary of that tragic day. He's been gone nearly 50 years, and even though dying young certainly cemented his legend, I think his legacy would have endured without that tragedy much in the same way as Check Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis' contributions are revered today.

In October, (tentatively 21 October) the first new official US releases in several years will be released. There's still a lot of legal wrangling over his recordings, and several European labels have done some nice work documenting his 1955-57 work. But these upcoming releases will include some of the legendary Apartment Tapes recordings, made less than two months before his death. These "Buddy unplugged" sessions are a must hear, even for casual fans. They are far from complete, but should surpass most of the single disc collections that are circulating out there.

Warning: A vocal group known as the Picks provided backup vocals back in 1957 for Buddy's "Chirping Crickets" LP. Those original recordings are classics, and the backups are a valuable part of the legacy. But in the 1980s, John Pickering and the original Picks received permission to take more of Buddy's recordings and overdub vocals to songs as sort of a vanity or "what if" project. For me, it was fun to hear once, but made me cringe upon repeated listenings. Legions of Holly fans have widely panned these recordings and were greatly troubled that these recordings were in the marketplace, confusing folks in the coming years who would be discovering Buddy's music for the first time. At some point in the last 15 years or so, Mr. Pickering sold the rights to these new overdubs for overseas distribution. Meanwhile, Buddy's widow (bride of less than 6 months) and MCA/Universal and The Crickets have been fighting over the rights to the original recordings, preventing many quality Buddy compilations from entering the marketplace, save for a few single-disc packages, in recent years. And while the legit releases have stalled, the budget-disc marketplace has been flooded with these suspect Picks overdubs. Buddy fans around the world have decried this releases, as they lend a bit of an easy-listening feel to some really great tunes, and we're all concerned that Holly newbies will buy these budget discs just to check Buddy out, hear the crappy overdubs, and dismiss Buddy's contibution to rock-n-roll. Avoid these budget comps if at all possible!

As soon as I find a link to these exciting, new, undubbed reissues, I'll let you know. David Geffen and Universal are involved in putting together these Oct 21st releases, which also have the blessing of Maria Elena Holly.

Holly-billy

Here'a a little blurb lifted from probably the best Buddy Holly site on the web, http://www.buddyhollyonline.com/:

"With the 50th anniversary of his untimely death approaching in February, the music left behind by pioneering Texas rock ’n’ roller Buddy Holly is sure to be widely celebrated and revisited in the coming months. Universal Music Enterprises will release two expansive Holly anthologies on Oct. 21.

Memorial Collection (Geffen/UMe) will be a three-disc, 60-track career overview, spanning his entire career from rare, early undubbed recordings Holly made with Bob Montgomery, through all of his hits with the Crickets and up to last recordings, including selections from the “Apartment Tapes.” And for the real Holly diehards (who probably already have all of the stuff on the Memorial Collection), Geffen will also release "Down The Line/Rarities", featuring the “Apartment Tapes” in their entirety as well as the undubbed “Garage Tapes,” a set of tracks the Crickets recorded in Holly’s family garage. The two-disc set will also include various other outtakes and alternate recordings of tunes by Holly and the Crickets."

If you're into torrent downloads, there is a fairly complete 10-disc set out there from Purple Chick Records. It sounds fantastic, but it's not exactly legal. It has recordings from a 12-year-old Buddy, all the known live recordings, interviews, commercials, demos, Buddy's session work, and a cool disc of Buddy's influences. It would be incredible if the legal mumbo jumbo could be resolved and a capable label like Bear Family could compile this legitimately. They ARE working on a similarly complete Eddie Cochran set that will hopefully be available within the next year to coincide with Eddie's 70th birthday.

A-Hey-Hey-A-Billy