Age, Biography, and Wiki
Buddy Holly was born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. He became a central figure in the development of rock and roll music, known for his innovative style and influential songs like "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue." His life was tragically cut short in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, at the age of 22.
| Occupation | Country Singer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 7 September 1936 |
| Age | 88 Years |
| Birth Place | Lubbock, Texas, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Virgo |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 3 February, 1959 |
| Died Place | Grant Township, Iowa, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited information available about Buddy Holly's exact height and weight, as these details are not commonly documented in his biographies or public records.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on February 3, 1959, Holly, Valens, Richardson, and Peterson were killed when the aircraft crashed into a cornfield five miles northwest of Clear Lake shortly after takeoff. The three musicians, who were ejected from the fuselage upon impact, sustained severe head and chest injuries. Holly was 22 years old.
During the height of punk, Elvis Costello resembled Holly. He wore his stylized glasses and dressed like him. Bob Dylan on Costello, from his 2022 book The Philosophy of Modern Song, "Elvis Costello and the Attractions were a better band than any of their contemporaries. Light years better. Elvis himself was a unique figure. Horn-rimmed glasses, quirky, pigeon-toed and intense. The only singer-guitarist in the band. You couldn't say that he didn't remind you of Buddy Holly. The Buddy stereotype. At least on the surface. Elvis had Harold Lloyd in his DNA as well. At the point of ‘Pump It Up’, he obviously had been listening to Springsteen too much. But he also had a heavy dose of 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'."
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Dating & Relationship Status
Buddy Holly was married to María Elena Holly (née Santiago) from August 1958 until his death in February 1959. María Elena was pregnant when Buddy passed away, but she suffered a miscarriage upon learning of his death.
The Holleys had an interest in music; all the family members except L.O. were able to play an instrument or sing. The elder Holley brothers performed in local talent shows; on one occasion, Buddy joined them on violin. Since he could not play it, his brother Larry greased the bow so it would not make any sound. The brothers won the contest. During World War II, Larry and Travis were called to military service. Upon his return, Larry brought with him a guitar he had bought from a shipmate while serving in the Pacific. At age 11, at his mother's urging, Buddy took piano lessons but abandoned them after nine months. He switched to the guitar after he saw a classmate playing and singing on the school bus. Buddy's parents initially bought him a steel guitar, but he insisted that he wanted a guitar like his brother's. His parents bought him an acoustic guitar from a local pawnshop, and he learned how to play it from Travis.
In the last week of September, the band members flew to Lubbock to visit their families. Holly's high school girlfriend, Echo McGuire, had left him for a fellow student. Aside from McGuire, Holly had a relationship with Lubbock fan June Clark. After Clark ended their relationship, Holly realized the importance of his relationship with McGuire and considered his relationship with Clark a temporary one. Meanwhile, for their return to recording, Petty arranged a session in Oklahoma City, where he was performing with his own band. While the band drove to the location, the producer set up a makeshift studio. The rest of the songs needed for an album and singles were recorded; Petty later dubbed the material in Clovis. The resulting album, The "Chirping" Crickets, was released on November 27, 1957. It reached number five on the UK Albums Chart. In October, Brunswick released the second single by the Crickets, "Oh, Boy!", with "Not Fade Away" on the B-side. The single reached number 10 on the pop chart and 13 on the R&B chart. Holly and the Crickets performed "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue" on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1, 1957. Following the appearance, Niki Sullivan left the group because he was tired of the intensive touring, and wished to resume his education. On December 29, Holly and the Crickets performed "Peggy Sue" on The Arthur Murray Party.
In September, Holly returned to Clovis for a new recording session, which yielded "Reminiscing" and "Come Back Baby". During the session, he ventured into producing by recording Lubbock DJ Waylon Jennings. Holly produced the single "Jole Blon" and "When Sin Stops (Love Begins)" for Jennings. Holly became increasingly interested in the New York music, recording, and publishing scene. Holly and Santiago settled in Apartment 4H of the Brevoort Apartments, at 11 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, where he recorded a series of acoustic songs, including "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and "What to Do". The inspiration to record the songs is sometimes attributed to the ending of his relationship with McGuire.
Holly vacationed with his wife in Lubbock and visited Jennings's radio station in December 1958. For the start of the Winter Dance Party tour, he assembled a band consisting of Waylon Jennings (electric bass), Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums). Holly and Jennings left for New York City, arriving on January 15, 1959. Jennings stayed at Holly's apartment by Washington Square Park on the days prior to a meeting scheduled at the headquarters of the General Artists Corporation, which organized the tour. They then traveled by train to Chicago to join the rest of the band.
Santiago watched the first reports of Holly's death on television. The following day, she suffered a miscarriage. Holly's mother, who heard the news on the radio in Lubbock, Texas, screamed and collapsed. Because of Elena's miscarriage, in the months following the accident, some government authorities implemented a policy against announcing victims' names until after families are informed. Santiago did not attend the funeral and has never visited the gravesite. She later told the Avalanche-Journal, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."
Peggy Sue Gerron was the inspiration behind Holly's hit song "Peggy Sue". Holly and Gerron had a flirtatious relationship, and Gerron had known Holly since her schooldays when she was dating drummer Jerry Allison. Gerron married Allison on July 22, 1958. The two newlywed couples had a shared honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico.
While Holly's other belongings were recovered immediately following his fatal plane crash, there was no record of his signature glasses being found. They were presumed lost until, in March 1980, they were discovered in a Cerro Gordo County courthouse storage area by Sheriff Gerald Allen. They had been found in the spring of 1959, after the snow had melted, and had been given to the sheriff's office. They were placed in an envelope dated April 7, 1959, along with the Big Bopper's watch, a lighter, two pairs of dice and part of another watch, and misplaced when the county moved courthouses. The glasses frames were returned to Santiago a year later, after a legal contest over them with his parents. They are now on display at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas.
The demand for Holly records was so great (although none saw much chart success on the US billboards), and Holly had recorded so prolifically, that his record label was able to release new Holly albums and singles for the next 10 years. Norman Petty produced most of these new editions, drawing upon unreleased studio masters, alternate takes, audition tapes, and even amateur recordings (some dating back to 1954 with low-fidelity vocals). The final "new" Buddy Holly album, Giant, was released in 1969; the single chosen from the album was "Love Is Strange". Encyclopædia Britannica stated that Holly "produced some of the most distinctive and influential work in rock music." AllMusic defined him as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." Rolling Stone ranked him number 13 on its list of "100 Greatest Artists." The Telegraph called him a "pioneer and a revolutionary [...] a multidimensional talent [...] (who) co-wrote and performed (songs that) remain as fresh and potent today." In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Holly at number 74 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Holly's follow up to the hit song "Peggy Sue" is featured in the 1986 Francis Ford Coppola film Peggy Sue Got Married, in which a 43-year-old mother and housewife facing divorce played by Kathleen Turner is thrust back in time and given the chance to change the course of her life.
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| Husband | María Elena Santiago (m. August 15, 1958) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death in 1959, Buddy Holly's net worth was estimated to be between $50,000 and $150,000. Adjusted for inflation, this would be equivalent to between $500,000 and $1.5 million in today's money. However, some sources simplify this to around $1 million at the time of his death, which is approximately $10 million when considering the enduring value of his music and legacy.
Santiago accompanied Holly on tours. To hide her marriage to Holly, she was presented as the Crickets' secretary. She took care of the laundry and equipment set-up and collected the concert revenues. Santiago kept the money for the band instead of its habitual transfer to Petty in New Mexico. She and her aunt Provi Garcia, an executive in the Latin American music department at Peer-Southern, convinced Holly that Petty was paying the band's royalties from Coral-Brunswick into his own company's account. Holly planned to retrieve his royalties from Petty and later to fire him as manager and producer. At the recommendation of the Everly Brothers, Holly hired lawyer Harold Orenstein to negotiate his royalties. The problems with Petty were triggered after he was unable to pay Holly. At the time, New York promoter Manny Greenfield reclaimed a large part of Holly's earnings; Greenfield had booked Holly for shows during previous tours. The two had a verbal agreement; Greenfield would obtain 5% of the booking earnings. Greenfield later felt he was also acting as Holly's manager and deserved a higher payment, which Holly refused. Greenfield then sued Holly. Under New York law, because Holly's royalties originated in New York and were directed out of the state, the payments were frozen until the dispute was settled.
Career, Business, and Investments
Buddy Holly's career was marked by his pioneering work in rock and roll. He formed The Crickets and released several hit singles, including "That'll Be the Day" and "Oh, Boy!" His innovative recording techniques and blend of country, R&B, and rockabilly styles influenced many artists, including the Beatles and Bob Dylan.
Holly's business ventures were primarily focused on his music career. He was signed to multiple labels, including Brunswick and Coral Records, which allowed him to release music under both his name and The Crickets.
Holly made his first appearance on local television in 1952, and the following year he formed the group Buddy and Bob with his friend Bob Montgomery. In 1955, after opening once for Elvis Presley, Holly decided to pursue a career in music. He played with Presley three times that year, and his band's style shifted from country and western to rock and roll. In October that year, when Holly opened for Bill Haley & His Comets, he was spotted by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall, who helped him get a contract with Decca Records.
During his short career, Holly wrote and recorded many songs. He is often regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums. Holly was a major influence on later popular music artists, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Hollies, Elvis Costello and Elton John. Holly was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of 100 Greatest Artists in 2010.
By 1955, after graduating from Lubbock High School, Holly decided to pursue a full-time career in music. He was further encouraged after seeing Elvis Presley perform live in Lubbock, whose act was booked by Pappy Dave Stone of KDAV. In February, Holly opened for Presley at the Fair Park Coliseum, in April at the Cotton Club, and again in June at the Coliseum. By that time, Holly had incorporated into his band Larry Welborn on the stand-up bass and Allison on drums, as his style shifted from country and western to rock and roll due to seeing Presley's performances and hearing his music. In October, Stone booked Bill Haley & His Comets and placed Holley as the opening act to be seen by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall. Impressed, Crandall persuaded Grand Ole Opry manager Jim Denny to seek a recording contract for Holley. Stone sent a demo tape, which Denny forwarded to Paul Cohen, who signed the band to Decca Records in February 1956. In the contract, Decca misspelled Holly's surname as "Holly", and from then on he was known as Buddy Holly, instead of his real name Holley.
During a visit to the offices of Peer-Southern, Holly met María Elena Santiago. He asked her out on their first meeting and proposed marriage to her on their first date. The wedding took place on August 15. Norman Petty had tried to dissuade Holly from marriage; he felt that it would disappoint Holly's public and damage his career.
Holly ended his association with Petty in December 1958. His band members kept Petty as their manager and split from Holly. The split was amicable and based on logistics: Holly had decided to settle permanently in New York, where the business and publishing offices were, and the Crickets preferred not to leave their home state.
Holly married María Elena Santiago, a New York record company receptionist, on August 15, 1958, at Tabernacle Baptist Church in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. In 1959, Santiago was pregnant with their first child, but suffered a miscarriage immediately after Holly's death. They had only been married for six months.
Holly bought his first Fender Stratocaster, which became his signature guitar, at Harrod Music in Lubbock. His innovative playing style was characterized by its blending of chunky rhythm and high string lead work. Holly played his first 1954 Stratocaster until it was stolen during a tour stop in Michigan in 1957. To replace it, he purchased a 1957 model before a show in Detroit. Holly owned four or five Stratocasters during his career.
At the beginning of their music careers, Holly and his group wore business suits. When they met the Everly Brothers, Don Everly took the band to Phil's Men's Shop in New York City and introduced them to Ivy League clothes. The brothers advised Holly to replace his old-fashioned glasses with horn-rimmed glasses, which had been popularized by Steve Allen. Holly bought a pair of glasses made in Mexico from Lubbock optometrist Dr. J. Davis Armistead. Teenagers in the United States started to request this style of glasses, which were later popularly known as "Buddy Holly glasses."
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Holly among its first class in 1986. On its entry, the Hall of Fame remarked upon the large quantity of material he produced during his short musical career, and said it "made a major and lasting impact on popular music." It called him an "innovator" for writing his own material, his experimentation with double tracking and the use of orchestration; he is also said to have "pioneered and popularized the now-standard" use of two guitars, bass, and drums by rock bands. The Songwriters Hall of Fame also inducted Holly in 1986, and said his contributions "changed the face of Rock 'n' Roll." Holly developed in collaboration with Petty techniques of overdubbing and reverb, while he used innovative instrumentation later implemented by other artists. Holly became "one of the most influential pioneers of rock and roll" who had a "lasting influence" on genre performers of the 1960s.
The launch of Bobby Vee's successful musical career resulted from Holly's death; Vee was selected to replace Holly on the tour that continued after the plane crash. Holly's profound influence on Vee's singing style can be heard in the songs "Rubber Ball" – the B-side of which was a cover of Holly's "Everyday" – and "Run to Him".
Social Network
Given the era in which Buddy Holly lived, social media as we know it today did not exist. However, his legacy continues to be celebrated through various social media platforms where fans and tribute accounts share his music and stories.
Holly's recording sessions at Decca were produced by Owen Bradley, who had become famous for producing orchestrated country hits for stars like Patsy Cline. Unhappy with Bradley's musical style and control in the studio, Holly went to producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico, and recorded a demo of "That'll Be the Day", among other songs. Petty became the band's manager and sent the demo to Brunswick Records, which released it as a single credited to the Crickets, a name chosen by the band to subvert Decca's contract limitations. In September 1957, as the band toured, "That'll Be the Day" topped the US and UK singles charts. Its success was followed in October by another major hit, "Peggy Sue".
The pilot, Roger Peterson, took off in inclement weather, even though he was not certified to fly by instruments only. Buddy's brother Larry Holley said, "I got the full report from the Civil Aeronautics – it took me a year to get it, but I got it – and they had installed a new Sperry gyroscope in the airplane. The Sperry works different than any other gyro. One of them, the background moves and the plane stays like this [stationary], and in the other one the background stays steady and the plane moves, it works just backwards. He [the pilot] could have been reading this backwards... they were going down, they thought they were still climbing."
Buddy Holly left behind dozens of unfinished recordings — solo transcriptions of his new compositions, informal jam sessions with bandmates, and tapes demonstrating songs intended for other artists. The last known recordings, made in Holly's apartment in late 1958, were his last six original songs. In June 1959, Coral Records overdubbed two of them with backing vocals by the Ray Charles Singers and studio musicians in an attempt to simulate the established Crickets sound. The finished tracks became the first posthumous Holly single, "Peggy Sue Got Married"/"Crying, Waiting, Hoping". The new release was successful enough to warrant an album drawing upon the other Holly demos, using the same studio personnel, in January 1960. All six songs were included in The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2 (1960).
The Chirping Crickets was the first album Eric Clapton ever bought; he later saw Holly on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. In his autobiography, Clapton recounted the first time he saw Holly and his Fender, saying, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven ... it was like seeing an instrument from outer space and I said to myself: 'That's the future – that's what I want. In 1969, his supergroup Blind Faith released a cover version of Holly's "Well All Right" featuring Steve Winwood on vocals.
In 2016, Richard Barone released his album Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, paying tribute to the new wave of singer-songwriters in the Village during that pivotal, post-Holly era. The album opens with Barone's version of "Learning the Game", one of the final songs written and recorded by Holly at his home in Greenwich Village, a week before his death.
Holly's life story inspired a Hollywood biographical film, The Buddy Holly Story (1978); its lead actor Gary Busey received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Holly. The film was widely criticized by the rock press, and by Holly's friends and family, for its inaccuracies. This led Paul McCartney (whose MPL Communications by then controlled the publishing rights to Buddy Holly's song catalog) to produce and host his own documentary about Holly in 1985, titled The Real Buddy Holly Story. This video includes interviews with Keith Richards, Phil and Don Everly, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, Holly's family, and McCartney, among others.
In 1998, the post-apocalyptic film Six-String Samurai depicted Holly as a guitar-playing samurai traveling to Las Vegas to become the new king of Nevada after the death of Elvis Presley.
The TV documentaries Without Walls: Not Fade Away (aired on Channel Four in 1996), and Buddy Holly: Rave On (aired on BBC Four in 2017). The 2022 documentary The Day the Music Died explores the story behind Don McLean's song "American Pie".
* In 2006, country band the Dixie Chicks mention Buddy Holly in their song "Lubbock or Leave It". Lead singer Natalie Maines and Holly share a hometown of Lubbock, Texas.
Education
Buddy Holly attended Lubbock High School in Texas but did not pursue higher education. His interest in music was encouraged from a young age, and he began performing locally before gaining national recognition.
During his early childhood, Holly was influenced by the music of Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Bill Monroe, Hank Snow, Bob Wills, and the Carter Family. At Roscoe Wilson Elementary, Holly became friends with Bob Montgomery, and the two played together, practicing with songs by The Louvin Brothers and Johnnie & Jack. They both listened to the radio programs Grand Ole Opry on WSM, Louisiana Hayride on KWKH, and Big D Jamboree. At the same time, Holly played with other musicians he met in high school, including Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison. In 1952 Holly and Jack Neal participated as a duo billed as Buddy and Jack in a talent contest on a local television show. After Neal left, he was replaced by Bob Montgomery, and they were billed as Buddy and Bob. They soon started performing on the Sunday Party show on KDAV in 1953 and performed live gigs in Lubbock. At that time, Holly was influenced by late-night radio stations that played blues and rhythm and blues (R&B). He would sit in his car with Curtis and tune to distant radio stations that could only be received at night, when local transmissions ceased. Holly then modified his music by blending his earlier country and western influence with R&B.
Norman Petty reasoned correctly that disc jockeys would be reluctant to play and promote multiple new records by the same artist, but would have no problem playing these same records if they were credited to different performers. Holly himself was unaware of this strategy; in a 1957 radio interview with Dale Lowery, Holly said, "We have three records going out right now. Of course, the first one was 'That'll Be the Day', the first one released. Then we have a new one out by The Crickets, called 'Oh Boy!' and 'Not Fade Away', and then there's one out, it's the same group but it's under my name -- I don't know why they did it that way, but it went out under my name -- called 'Peggy Sue' and 'Everyday'." Holly's records were released with labels reading "Buddy Holly" or "The Crickets"; the band was never credited on records as "Buddy Holly and the Crickets" until 1962, when a compilation album was released.
The report did not mention a gun belonging to Holly that was found by a farmer two months after the crash. Newspaper accounts of the gun discovery fueled rumors among fans that the pilot was somehow shot, causing the crash. Another curious finding at the crash was that Richardson's body was discovered nearly 40 ft away from the crash while the others were found in or near the wreckage. However, an autopsy done at the request of Richardson's son in 2007 found no evidence to support the rumors. Dr. Bill Bass, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Tennessee, stated that "There was no indication of foul play," and that Richardson "died immediately."
According to a June 2019 article in The New York Times Magazine, "virtually all" of Holly's masters were lost in the 2008 Universal fire. This is disputed by Chad Kassem of Analogue Productions, who claims to have used the master tapes of Holly's first two albums in Analogue Productions reissues of these albums on LP and SACD in 2017.
* Comentale, Edward P. (2013). Chapter Five. Sweet Air: Modernism, Regionalism, and American Popular Song. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07892-7.
