Absolutely not fade away

When I’m alone and going about various tasks, I tend to sing. Not ‘tend to’, I ‘always’ sing. I got that trait from my mother. She always sang songs from her era, so even today when I hear wartime ditties like ‘It’s Been A Long, Long Time’, or ‘I’ll Buy That Dream’ I’ll feel a slightly misty nostalgic tug and think of what might have been had she been a different person. But, water under the bridge, she did have a nice voice.

I have a reasonably decent voice and even sang for a while in a church choir when I was young. I was once singing in the car when we were riding with friends many years ago. The wife said, “Don’t sing, Ian, let Barrie sing.” I was insulted. On the other hand, Barrie once sang with the Norman Luboff Choir, the sonofabitch, so I could hardly compete. But, I continue to sing, nevertheless.

Lately I’ve noticed that I have been singing a lot of Buddy Holly songs. They’re good songs. Nice and melodic. Even my Glenn Miller era mother thought Buddy Holly was good. He also wore glasses and a shirt and tie, and was good to his family, not like that oily hoodlum Presley, in Mom’s esteem.

Buddy Holly was my absolute favorite singer when I was in high school. I don’t idolize people much, but he qualified. In fact, in high school I wore black-framed horn-rim glasses just like Buddy’s. I also looked a bit like him, so I was stuck with the nickname Buddy throughout my highschool years. I wasn’t entirely unflattered.

I realized when I was singing those songs, not the big blockbusters like Peggy Sue or Everyday, but lesser known offerings like Words of Love, Listen to Me, or Not Fade Away, that Feb. 3 is the anniversary of Holly’s unspeakably untimely death. It is not only the anniversary, but it is the 49th anniversary. Time goes fast when you’re having fun, no?

Charles Hardin Holley (sic) was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. He was a decent but musical kid. One day he and his friends went off to relatively nearby Clovis, New Mexico and cut a record. The rest is, as they say, history. During his unspeakably brief career (he was not yet 23 when he died in that plane in a snowy February cornfield) he composed a mass of timeless, and sometimes brilliant songs that have never left us. Presley (and I don’t mean to demean him as a stylist) never composed a thing.

People have paid homage to Buddy Everybody from Gary Busey in the quite well done Buddy Holly Story, to Don McLean with the longwinded American Pie.

Who knows where Holly would have gone if he had led a normal lifespan (he’d be 72 now)? But, he didn’t, so we can rest content with the huge songsheet he turned out in his very brief time on earth.

What was I doing “the day the music died?” I was a young kid riding on a bus to a dental appointment. I was already bummed out, so the news of Holly’s death just added to my angst.