Show Notes: "Not Fade Away"

Buddy Holly and the Crickets were a product of their times, and their legacy has been carried on through countless rock n roll acts

No, these aren’t a couple of waiters, It’s Buddy Holly and the Crickets!

In 1973’s American Graffiti, my all time favorite movie by the way, greaser John Milner snaps the Beach Boys off from the radio and wistfully states, “Rock and Roll has been going downhill since Buddy Holly died.”

For the record, the Beach Boys are among my favorite bands, but Milner’s sentiment, set three years after Holly’s tragic death, is still worth considering. Personally I would counter John Milner by saying that rock and roll fragmented after Holly’s death, but that doesn’t fit into a movie script very well. Anyway, Buddy Holly and the Crickets contributed significantly to the evolution of rock n roll, especially in the realm of creating a rock n roll band, rather than just one figure on stage. This makes for one incredibly large fragment as so many legendary groups from the Beatles to the Hollies to the Rolling Stones, and yes Mr. Milner, even the Beach Boys followed the pattern created by the Crickets.

My guest in this episode, Gary Clevenger, researches Buddy Holly and has written a pair of books about the Lubbock, Texas musician. We crossed paths on a Ramones facebook page, which is appropriate considering they too are one of a seemingly endless supply of rock n roll groups that extend from the direct line that Holly and the Crickets created.

Did the music die?