That’ll Be The Day!
Some may believe The Buddy Holly Story movie version of how The Crickets got their name. The whole cricket in the garage thing at Buddy’s home in the early days, the scene is fiction. The name came about after the Decca recordings which is about two years later than any playing they did in Buddy’s parents garage. When working with Norman Petty in his Clovis, New Mexico studio, Buddy wanted to record “That’ll Be the Day”. The song was one of the unreleased records that Buddy did with Decca in Nashville. That first session took place July 22, 1956 with Buddy, Don Guess, Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison. And formally credited to Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes and Decca released this after the song became a hit.
Long story short, and there are several different recollections but basically they needed to release the new version under a different name in an attempt to avoid issues with Buddy’s old Decca contract that was still in place. So Nikki Sullivan, Buddy and Jerry Allison got together and, based on an R&B group named The Spiders, they sifted through an Encyclopedia looking for names. They briefly considered the Beetles but as we know they settled on the more ‘musical’ insect.
In another part of the movie, the scene were the DJ locked himself in the studio and played Buddy’s “That’ll Be The Day” over and over was completely made up and this never happened.
“That’ll Be The Day” was written by Jerry Allison and Buddy Holly with a song credit taken by Norman Petty for the reworked hit version. Released as a single by The Crickets on May 27, 1957. It’s not a surprise that his biggest hit and only Billboard #1 is also one of his songs with the most cover versions. Recorded over 110 times.
“That’ll Be The Day” was released by Linda Ronstadt in August of 1976 and the single would reach #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Ronstadt’s fifth top 40 single in two years, all of them cover songs.
The precursor to The Beatles, The Quarryman would record this song July 15, 1958. It was not officially released until 1995 on Anthology 1.
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Mostly Music Covers 
You would have to go out of your way to make a bad version of this song…it’s that good of a constructed song. I love how Lennon’s voice cuts through the fog in the Quarrymen recording. I first heard it from Linda Ronstadt as a kid but I my heart belongs to Buddy Holly and the Beetles… Man, history would have been different!
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I agree with your take on making a bad version yet many have somehow managed it! On so many tribute albums and songs artists try to make it there own and often they just ruin the song.
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My next post will demonstrate my point I think
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Yea it’s not made to be messed with…stick with the winning formula…do it as is!
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