Search - Buddy Holly :: Not Fade Away: Buddy Holly 1957 the Complete

EXTRAORDINARY LOOK AT HOLLY AT WORK IN 1957

Mark | Santa Monica, CA | 02/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
For starters this 3 disk set includes all Buddy Holly's studio recordings for 1957 -- the complete "Chirpin' Crickets" sessions and singles like "Peggy Sue."



That just for starters...



Intermingled chronologically are a surprising number of rare or previously unreleased demos versions, mostly of studio quality. Here is an alternate take of "Peggy Sue" plus demos of "Words of Love," "Last Night, "Send Me Some Lovin'", "Not Fade Away" and others.



A high point for me is a sound check of the echo chamber in Petty's studio.



Buddy created this chamber by tiling up (with broken bathroom tile from his father's tile business) an upstairs store room in the filling station next door owned by Norman Petty's father. They ran a line to this room (now a "chamber"), then installed an input speaker and output mic in there; the sound that returned to the studio had that ringing fullness that inspires people to sing in the shower.



For the echo test Buddy performs Bo Diddly's "Mona"; his off-mike vocal is only a whisper, but his Stratocaster rings with startling clarity.



(For the curious, that's drummer Jerry Alison doing his own test, saying "Beeee...Oooooo" in a deep voice like a fog horn. He's imitating a popular deodorant commercial on TV back then (BO = body odor). A young man snappily dressed in suit and tie steps onto an elevator, where a pretty girl at first takes notice of him. Then like a voice from the heavens comes "Beeee...Ooooo!". She frowns and turns away, leaving the guy disappointed and mystified.)



Buddy recorded "That'll Be the Day" in February of 1957. After Norman placed it at Brunswick records, he and the Crickets recorded two brief reworded versions expressing thanks to Bob Thiele and Murray Deutche of Brunswick -- both included here.



During the long spell between finishing "That'll Be the Day" in February and its breakout in September, Buddy worked as a session musician at Petty's studio. His firery guitar backing is exciting and unmistakable on a number of these recordings by various artists; happily, most are quite good and an interesting insight in the West Texas music scene of that period.



After the breakout of "That'll Be the Day," Buddy toured extensively and recorded stations breaks and plugs for a number of stations playing his hits. A number of these are included here, along with interviews with Buddy, and some live performances.



The fragments from Buddy's life in 1957 to be found here are tragically few compared to what has been lost. In the studio, once Norman Petty got a finished take he would clip it from a reel, and use the reel with its false starts, studio talk, and alternate takes as junker tape to be recorded over. We do have a pitifully few scraps found at the tails or between songs from reels by other artists in Petty's vault. Similarly, the demos Buddy made were mostly discarded. And disc jockeys had so many station plugs by stars that mostly these and interviews were lost or discarded when no longer timely. But amazingly a few precious fragments have have survived and are used here to document the year Buddy Holly emerged as a major star.



Overall, I would recommend this package to anybody and everybody. For Holly fans it is simply priceless. For those new to Holly, it is a unique insight into his appealing personality -- shy and unassuming, but bursting with enthusiasm and the sheer love of being alive.



He was really here for a only short while, and some years back now...



Listening to these three disks gives you the feeling of having spent a little time with him back then, in the studio and on the road.



What a great trip that is...



"

BUDDY LIVES ON

BILLYBOBUK | PLANO,TX | 03/31/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This,along with its companion set, is the Buddy Holly release his fans have been longing to hear for fifty years.The previous review from Mark,CA,gives a great description of the discs contents,and along with the songs we all know and love, the demos,interviews,promos,etc.are fascinating listening.Also includes many of the recordings Buddy played on,which showcase the music scene that was happening out in West Texas late 50's.

The sound is excellent,informative notes on the recording sessions add up to an outstanding release of the music of one of the true pioneers of rock'n'roll.

MCA will or cannot make these recordings available, so a big thank you to ELTORO RECORDS in Barcelona,Spain for making this material available, grab it while you can!!"

For the real collectors

R. Huizeling | 08/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Real Buddy collectors (such as I am) can't afford to miss this package. Having a far from modest collection of lp's and cd's, I still did not have all the songs which are included in the package (this is about the songs on which Buddy doesn't have the lead vocal of course).



Naturally, it's a pity that no better tapes are found of the undubbed versions of It's too late and Send me some lovin' but of course... you can not blame the people who made this package for that.



Personally, I'd rather have seen that all the titles with Buddy's lead vocal on them were on the first 2 cd's (or the first one and a half) and the rest on the last cd (or the last one and a half). But that's only a question of real personal taste and doesn't prevent me from playing all 3 again at this moment."