Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 12th instalment, …
March 5 – Turntable Talk 12 : Melissa Was Hot From The Start
This is a repost from a guest post I did for Dave at A Sound Day
If you are of a certain age you may recall the title is from a song used by Donny & Marie Osmond on their TV show in the mid 70’s. It was originally written as a love song by Marty Cooper, however after some editing it became the signature song for the brother and sister.
Today I am not talking about the song, or any member of the talented Osmond Family for that matter but the title seemed to fit. When I started to write this post the song title just came to me, as I am talking about the relationship between Country Music and Rock Music, I could not have come up with a better title. First, I will discuss a very brief overview of each genres history and then some of the many early connections between the two. Just a reminder that you can check out my past posts on The History of Rock and Roll, The Delta Blues and many others for more connections.
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Buddy is best remembered for his original songs, and he wrote or co-wrote most of them himself. His first single was under his new contract with Decca (1956) is “Love Me” that he co-wrote with Sue Parish from Lubbock, Texas. It was the A side of the first of two records released by Decca after those initial sessions in Nashville. On the B side was “Blue Days – Black Nights” written by Ben Hall, also from Lubbock. The other record had “Modern Don Juan” on the A side that was written by a longtime friend of Buddy and his family, Don Guess. Don’s (The Guest) Sisters recorded with Norman Petty in Clovis in the 1940’s and this provides the link to Buddy working with Petty after he left Decca. The B side was “That’s My One Desire” that was also written by Don Guess.
As we known there was a disconnect with Decca right from the beginning, they wanted a Country Singer, and Buddy wanted to do Rock and Roll. For his first recordings in Nashville, he had taken Sonny Curtis to play lead guitar, and Don Guess to play the bass. He left his friend and drummer Jerry Allison in Lubbock and Nikki Sullivan stayed in school. At that time in Nashville, Country & Western Music very rarely used drums and they did not really even know how to record them. They were banned from The Grand Ole Opry stage for many years. In the 1950’s much of the Country Music world worried that with drums it would start to sound like Rock and Roll. So Buddy could not get the sound he wanted and Decca put no effort in promoting him.
I know I posted this song recently but it was not until he worked with Norman Petty that the real Buddy Holly was heard. On “That’ll Be The Day” it was just Buddy with his jangly lead guitar, Jerry Allison on drums and from the first recording, replacing Joe Mauldin on bass it was Larry Welborn (who had also played on past Holly recordings). Nikki Sullivan (one of Buddy’s bass players) provided background vocals only, along with June Clark, Gary Tollett and Ramona Tollett. The resulting and much better version was released on Brunswick in May of 1957. This became his breakout single. It reached #1 on Billboard (this was pre-Hot 100), it went to #2 on the R&B Chart and was #1 in the UK. It was his only #1 in the US.
As I have mentioned, there are movie portrayals and many have seen some of the great theatrical performances, also the books and other tributes to Buddy Holly. There was a Tribute album “Rave On” released in 2011 that was unfortunately a critical failure with some less than stellar efforts from some respected artists. There is one standout version from My Morning Jacket on “True Love Ways“. Then there is the namesake band called The Hollies. Elvis Costello’s look was not a mistake either. As I mentioned in Part 1 and many have said, the course of (what we think of as the original) Rock and Roll changed as a result of that plane crash. I believe it was a key part of the decline of the genre but there were many other events in and around the same time that had an impact. For more on that story you can read my post, When did Rock Drop the Roll. I think the biggest loss with Holly was the direction he was moving with his music.
Buddy never thought Rock and Roll would last much longer, at least not at its current pace of the late 1950’s so he turned his focus to other styles and types of music. The move to New York was due to his desire to focus more on writing and publishing. This led to a split with The Crickets who were for the record, drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. They would form the band that toured with Buddy in 1957. If you are following with the names I have mentioned on recordings, the three were rarely together in studio.
After the move, Buddy had a bit of a cash flow problem, for reasons I won’t go into now but this led to his decision to join the Winter Dance Party tour. He put together a new band with fellow Texan Waylon Jennings, a guy Buddy had been grooming for stage performances (lead Guitar) and another Texan Carl Bunch (drums) along with Tommy Allsup (Guitar) who had also been playing in Texas. There are many accounts surrounding the events of that fateful tour. I will try and present the rest of the story as I understand it and wrap up with Buddy Holly Part 3.
Thanks to the band Weezer and this retro themed song and video from 1994 it gave many younger listeners a look back in time and perhaps some discovered the amazing Buddy Holly collection. Not to mention Mary Tyler Moore! BTW and I am sure this is no coincidence on the part of Weezer, the theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore tv show was written and sung by Buddy’s friend Sonny Curtis.
I hope you continue to enjoy my blog and as always, thanks for reading!
References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
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.
Thanks for reading!
I am starting something new, it will be a short take on cover songs with more frequent posts. Beginning with Buddy Holly songs, moving to Billie Holiday and finishing the year with Holiday and Christmas songs. While Canada held Thanksgiving Day on October 10, Americans will celebrate on November 24. So with this upcoming official start to the Season, along with my recent post on Buddy, and please pardon the pun, but the Holly/Holiday was just too much to resist!
Buddy in his short career released 36 original songs and 27 covers. Of those amazing originals, (for me this is going back some years now) I was surprised to learn that “Rave On” is not one of them. It was co-written and recorded by Sonny West, who was also managed and produced by Norman Petty. West released it in February of 1958, it did not chart. Buddy was the first to cover it and the first time he himself covered someone’s song. So later in 1958 he changed it up just a bit (for the better), leading to a #37 hit in the US and #5 in the UK. This would go on to be covered more than 80 times, mostly in the style of Buddy Holly.
Thanks for reading.
Holly Tree image by Nannette Turner
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