The Day the Music Died

Today is February 2, the anniversary of the day Buddy Holly died in a plane crash.

I got into Buddy Holly around the time I got out of college and got into stuff like playing guitar, Rockabilly, and music in general. And I found out that I had been a fan longer than I thought. Let me explain . . .

Back in grade school, among my collection of records, and in fact among the very first that I ever owned, were Parallel Lines by Blondie and Get the Knack, by the Knack. Now these records, which were 12" disks
of vinyl, processed from the now long extinct hides of vinylsauruses, came with cool stuff like liner notes, lyrics and  song writing credits, all of which could be read without the aid of a magnifying glass, unlike the tiny foldouts that come with CD's today. One thing I noticed while perusing this wealth of information and really cool pictures while spinning the records was that two of my favorite songs from these albums, "Heartbeat" from GTK and "I'm a Gonna Love You Too" from PL, weren't written by anyone in the band. These were cover songs, but never having heard the originals, I didn't know any better.

 

Flash forward -- it was quite a surprise to learn that some of my favorite songs were Buddy Holly songs! I had been a fan for years and never knew. Right now I'm listening to "Mailman bring me no Blues," from the  the 5 album boxed set The Complete Buddy Holly (yes, 5 vinyl records, not available in CD and all in glorious mono). Later I'll get out my guitar and play along.