Film of the Week: 15

The Buddy Holly Story (1978)

Back when I was a kid, the first music I listened to was the music my father listened to. Thankfully he had taste and I was brought up on Rock n' Roll. From Elvis Presley (his favourite) to Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Little Richard to of course the great Buddy Holly.

Charles Hardin Holley (aka Buddy Holly) was born on September 7, 1936 and acquired the name "Buddy" from his family, because he was so nice to everyone. As for his surname "Holly", it was accidentally misspelt by Decca Records in 1956 on a contract, only instead of correcting it, Buddy kept it.

His rockabilly style began in 1955 after witnessing Elvis Presley in Buddy's hometown of Lubbock, Texas. Later that year, he opened for Elvis and Bill Haley & His Comets on another occasion and this got him noticed by a Nashville scout.

Buddy later went on to form a band of his own called 'The Crickets' and released an early version of one of their greatest hits "That'll Be The Day". The title of the song allegedly came from the great american western film The Searchers by John Ford.

In the midst if his success, Buddy released three studio albums up until April 1958, The "Chirping" Crickets, Buddy Holly & That'll Be the Day up until he quit the band in late 1958. But now Buddy wanted to go to New York as he became fascinated by the music industry there, only the band wanted to go back home to Lubbock.

Left: Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly in 1959
Right: Buddy at a booth in New York’s Central Station (23/01/59)

So as a result, the band split up and Buddy and his 6 month pregnant wife María Elena Holly went to New York and got an apartment at Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Sadly though, on February 3, 1959 came 'the day the music died' where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash just near Clear Lake, Iowa.

Buddy's wife miscarried shortly after and was reported as “psychological trauma”. She never visited the gravesite nor did she attend the funeral.

The film was adapted from the book Buddy Holly: His Life and Music, the biography of Holly by John Goldrosen and stared Gary Busey (from Lethal Weapon) as Buddy Holly in Busey's best performance to date. It portrays Buddy in his active years of the age of 19-22, only Gary Busey was 33 when he played Buddy Holly.

Gary Busey as Buddy Holly

We get a great insight on the atmosphere of his home town at the time in 1955 and how most people (the older generation) were against rock n roll, or as they called it "a threat to our society". Not to mention Gary Busey at his all time best as Buddy Holly who plays him brilliantly and even looks a little like him.

Buddy Holly

It shows how he fought his way into the industry and the beginning of the crickets whist struggling to get his music out the way he wanted it, which was far from easy in the 1950s. Director Steve Rash also made a clever decision here of skipping Buddy's childhood and going straight to the age of 19 where the action began. Leaving more time in the film for necessary pieces rather than pro longing a film with information we can do without.

Buddy Holly now remains a huge influence in the music industry and has inspired numerous great musicians such as The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton and inspired Don McLean to write the great song 'American Pie' about 'The Day the Music Died'. Even the '90s band Weezer wrote a song titled 'Buddy Holly' and critic Bruce Eder described Holly as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll."

Click here for the trailer