If you took out a map of the United States and traced a line beginning at New Orleans and running up the Mississippi River to Memphis, the tip of your finger would pass through the very birthplace of rock and roll—a region where nearly every step in its early development took place and where nearly every significant contributor to that development was born. But if the foundation of rock and roll was mostly laid down within 100 miles of the Mississippi River in the mid-1950s, the blueprint for what would follow required the further contributions of a young man born 700 miles to the west on this day in 1936: Charles Harden Holley. Writing and performing under the name Buddy Holly, this Lubbock, Texas, native would have an influence on rock and roll that would far outlast his tragically shortened career.
By 1956, Buddy Holly was still an unknown, but he was blazing a trail that future giants like the Beatles would follow by writing, performing and eventually producing his own material. Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones would draw heavily on the Buddy Holly catalog either for cover material or direct songwriting inspiration, and Holly would be a tremendous formative influence on the young Bob Dylan, among many others.
In a recording career that lasted little more than 18 months, Holly contributed an astonishing number of classic songs to the rock-and-roll canon, including “That’ll Be The Day,” “Peggy Sue,” “Not Fade Away,” It’s So Easy,” “Everyday,” “Oh Boy!” and “Maybe Baby.” Born on this day in 1936, he died in 1959 at the age 23 in rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous plane crash.
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