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Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Lubbock rock and roll group whose Clovis recordings of 1957 set the pattern of two guitars, bass and drums.

Origin
Lubbock, Texas
Years active
1957-1958
Genres
rock and roll, rockabilly
Labels
Decca, Brunswick, Coral
Also known as
Buddy Holly, The Crickets

Lubbock and Decca

Charles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock, Texas, on 7 September 1936, into a musical family. He took up guitar around the age of 11, taught by his brother Travis, and by 1953 he was playing the Sunday Party show on KDAV as half of Buddy and Bob, with Bob Montgomery. In 1955 he opened for Elvis Presley in Lubbock and, later that year, for Bill Haley & His Comets. That led to a Decca Records contract in February 1956, in which his surname was misspelled as Holly. The spelling stayed.

Decca teamed him with the Nashville producer Owen Bradley. On 22 July 1956 Holly recorded That'll Be the Day there, but Decca did not issue the session at the time. In January 1957 the label told him his contract would not be renewed, and that he could not record the same songs for anyone else for five years.

Clovis and the Crickets

Holly turned to Norman Petty, whose studio stood in Clovis, New Mexico. With drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan, he recorded the song again there on 25 February 1957. To get around Decca's restriction, Petty credited the record to the Crickets and sent it to Brunswick, a Decca subsidiary. Petty and Holly later learned that Brunswick was a Decca subsidiary, and from then on recordings credited to the Crickets came out on Brunswick, while those under Holly's name came out on Coral.

That'll Be the Day reached number one in the United States on 23 September 1957 and in Britain that November. In between, Peggy Sue, released under Holly's name on Coral, climbed to number three in the US. The group had played Harlem's Apollo Theater that August, as the first white act to perform at the theater, which was widely known for African American-oriented entertainment. Their only album as the Crickets in Holly's lifetime, The "Chirping" Crickets, came out on 27 November 1957 and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart.

1958 and the split

Sullivan left after the Crickets' Ed Sullivan Show appearance on 1 December 1957, to resume his education. The year 1958 brought a second Ed Sullivan spot, a tour of Australia and a British tour of 50 shows in 25 days. On 25 January Holly recorded Rave On, and in February Coral issued his solo debut, Buddy Holly. In August he married Maria Elena Santiago in Lubbock.

His last studio session, on 21 October 1958 at the Pythian Temple in New York, paired him with an 18-piece ensemble under the producer Dick Jacobs and yielded four songs, among them "True Love Ways" and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore". In December 1958 Holly ended his association with Petty. Allison and Mauldin kept Petty as their manager. The split was amicable and practical: Holly had decided to settle in New York, and the Crickets preferred not to leave their home state. For the Winter Dance Party tour, which began in Milwaukee on 23 January 1959, Holly assembled Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup and drummer Carl Bunch.

After 3 February 1959

Holly died on 3 February 1959 in an aircraft crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. He was 22. Bob Dylan, then 17, had seen him play in Duluth on 31 January 1959. The Buddy Holly Story appeared on 28 February 1959 and reached number two on the UK Albums Chart. The Crickets carried on with other singers and players, and their 1962 single "Don't Ever Change" reached the British top five.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Holly in 1986 and the Crickets, represented by Allison, Sonny Curtis, Mauldin and Sullivan, in 2012. Its page for the band says they wrote the blueprint for rock and roll bands: two guitars, bass and drums. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, inspired by the insect-themed Crickets, chose the name the Beatles. Mauldin died in 2015 and Allison in 2022.

Members

Records

Songs

The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Waylon Jennings

Where to go next

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Sources

  1. Buddy Holly, Wikipedia
  2. The "Chirping" Crickets, Wikipedia
  3. The Crickets, Wikipedia
  4. Buddy Holly, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
  5. The Crickets, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
  6. From the National Recording Registry: "That'll Be the Day" (1957), Library of Congress, Now See Hear! (2022-02-23)
  7. Rediscover Buddy Holly: A Revelatory Edition of His Classic 'Chirping Crickets' LP, Americana Highways (2026-04-05)