Buddy Holly left behind dozens of unfinished recordings — solo transcriptions of his new compositions, informal jam sessions with bandmates, and tapes demonstrating songs intended for other artists. The last known recordings, made in Holly's apartment in late 1958, were his last six original songs. In June 1959, Coral Records overdubbed two of them with backing vocals by the
Ray Charles Singers and studio musicians in an attempt to simulate the established Crickets sound. The finished tracks became the first posthumous Holly single, "
Peggy Sue Got Married"/"
Crying, Waiting, Hoping". The new release was successful enough to warrant an album drawing upon the other Holly demos, using the same studio personnel, in January 1960. All six songs were included in
The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2 (1960). The demand for Holly records was so great (although none saw much chart success on the US billboards), and Holly had recorded so prolifically, that his record label was able to release new Holly albums and singles for the next 10 years. Norman Petty produced most of these new editions, drawing upon unreleased studio masters, alternate takes, audition tapes, and even amateur recordings (some dating back to 1954 with low-fidelity vocals). The final "new" Buddy Holly album,
Giant, was released in 1969; the single chosen from the album was "
Love Is Strange".
Encyclopædia Britannica stated that Holly "produced some of the most distinctive and influential work in rock music."
AllMusic defined him as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll."
Rolling Stone ranked him number 13 on its list of "100 Greatest Artists." The
Telegraph called him a "pioneer and a revolutionary [...] a multidimensional talent [...] (who) co-wrote and performed (songs that) remain as fresh and potent today." In 2023,
Rolling Stone ranked Holly at number 74 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Holly among its first class in 1986. On its entry, the Hall of Fame remarked upon the large quantity of material he produced during his short musical career, and said it "made a major and lasting impact on popular music." It called him an "innovator" for writing his own material, his experimentation with
double tracking and the use of
orchestration; he is also said to have "pioneered and popularized the now-standard" use of two guitars, bass, and drums by rock bands.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame also inducted Holly in 1986, and said his contributions "changed the face of Rock 'n' Roll." Holly developed in collaboration with Petty techniques of
overdubbing and
reverb, while he used innovative instrumentation later implemented by other artists. Holly became "one of the most influential pioneers of rock and roll" who had a "lasting influence" on genre performers of the 1960s. , a museum in Lubbock, Texas In 1980,
Grant Speed sculpted a statue of Holly playing his Fender guitar. This statue is the centerpiece of Lubbock's Walk of Fame, which honors notable people who contributed to Lubbock's musical history. Other memorials to Buddy Holly include a street named in his honor and the
Buddy Holly Center, which contains a museum of Holly memorabilia and fine arts gallery. The center is located on Crickets Avenue, one street east of Buddy Holly Avenue, in a building that previously housed the Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway Depot. In 2010, the statue was taken down for refurbishment, and construction of a new Walk of Fame began. In 1997, the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave Holly the
Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the
Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. On May 9, 2011, the City of Lubbock held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Buddy and Maria Elena Holly Plaza, the new home of the statue and the Walk of Fame. On what would have been his 75th birthday, a star bearing Holly's name was placed on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. Groundbreaking was held on April 20, 2017, for the construction of a new performing arts center in Lubbock, the
Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences, a downtown $153 million project expected to be completed in 2020. Thus far, the private group, the Lubbock Entertainment and Performing Arts Association, has raised or received pledges in the amount of $93 million to underwrite the project. According to a June 2019 article in
The New York Times Magazine, "virtually all" of Holly's masters were lost in the
2008 Universal fire. This is disputed by Chad Kassem of
Analogue Productions, who claims to have used the master tapes of Holly's first two albums in Analogue Productions reissues of these albums on LP and SACD in 2017.
Influence The Beatles John Lennon and
Paul McCartney saw Holly for the first time when he appeared on
Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The two had recently met and begun their musical association. They studied Holly's records, learned his performance style and lyricism, and based their act around his persona. Inspired by Holly's insect-themed Crickets, they chose to name their band "
the Beatles". Lennon and McCartney later cited Holly as one of their main influences. Lennon's band
the Quarrymen covered "That'll Be the Day" in their first recording session, in 1958. During breaks in the Beatles' first appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 9, 1964, Lennon asked
CBS coordinator Vince Calandra about Holly's performances; Calandra said Lennon and McCartney repeatedly expressed their appreciation of Holly. The Beatles recorded a close cover of Holly's version of "
Words of Love", which was released on their 1964 album
Beatles for Sale (in the US, in June 1965 on
Beatles VI). During the January 1969 recording sessions for their album
Let It Be, the Beatles played a slow, impromptu version of "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" – which Holly popularized but did not write – with Lennon mimicking Holly's vocal style. Lennon recorded a cover version of "Peggy Sue" on his 1975 album ''
Rock 'n' Roll''. McCartney owns the
publishing rights to Holly's song catalog.
Bob Dylan On January 31, 1959, two nights before Holly's death, 17-year-old
Bob Dylan attended Holly's performance in
Duluth. Dylan referred to this in his acceptance speech when he received the
Grammy Award for Album of the Year for
Time Out of Mind in 1998: "... when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at
Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him ... and he looked at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was ... with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way."
The Rolling Stones Mick Jagger saw Holly performing live in
Woolwich, London, during a tour of the UK; Jagger particularly remembered Holly's performance of "
Not Fade Away" – a song that also inspired
Keith Richards, who modeled his early guitar playing on the track. The Rolling Stones had a hit version of the song in 1964. Richards later said, "[Holly] passed it on via the Beatles and via [the Rolling Stones] ... He's in everybody."
Steve Marriott From a young age,
Steve Marriott was a huge fan of Holly and would mimic his hero by wearing large-rimmed spectacles with the lenses removed. Marriott wrote his first song, called "Shelia My Dear", after his aunt Shelia to whom he was close. Those who heard the song said it was played at a jaunty pace in the style of Holly and his bandmates also nicknamed him 'Buddy'. Marriott also recorded a version of
Kenny Lynch's song "Give Her My Regards" b/w "Imaginary Love", the B-side written by Marriott, and released as a
45-rpm in 1963 on Decca, inspired by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. His band,
Humble Pie released a cover version of "Heartbeat" on their 1969 album
Town and Country.
Don McLean Don McLean's popular 1971
ballad "
American Pie" was inspired by Holly's death and the day of the airplane crash. The song's lyric, which calls the incident "The Day the Music Died", became popularly associated with the crash. McLean's album
American Pie is dedicated to Holly. In 2015, McLean wrote, "Buddy Holly would have the same stature musically whether he would have lived or died, because of his accomplishments ... By the time he was 22 years old, he had recorded some 50 tracks, most of which he had written himself ... in my view and the view of many others, a hit ... Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the template for all the rock bands that followed."
Eric Clapton The Chirping Crickets was the first album
Eric Clapton ever bought; he later saw Holly on
Sunday Night at the London Palladium. In his autobiography, Clapton recounted the first time he saw Holly and his Fender, saying, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven ... it was like seeing an instrument from outer space and I said to myself: 'That's the future – that's what I want. In 1969, his supergroup
Blind Faith released a cover version of Holly's "Well All Right" featuring
Steve Winwood on vocals.
Bobby Vee The launch of
Bobby Vee's successful musical career resulted from Holly's death; Vee was selected to replace Holly on the tour that continued after the plane crash. Holly's profound influence on Vee's singing style can be heard in the songs "
Rubber Ball" – the B-side of which was a cover of Holly's "Everyday" – and "Run to Him".
The Hollies The name of the British rock band
the Hollies is often claimed as a tribute to Holly; according to the band, they admired Holly, but their name was mainly inspired by sprigs of holly in evidence around Christmas 1962.
Phil Ochs In 1970, protest folk singer
Phil Ochs released his sarcastic
Greatest Hits (1970) album, and eventually, his live album
Gunfight at Carnegie Hall (1974). During his concert at
Carnegie Hall on March 27, 1970,
Phil Ochs performed his "Buddy Holly Medley" comprising Holly's songs "Not Fade Away", "I'm Gonna Love You Too", "Think It Over", "Oh, Boy!", "Everyday", and "It's So Easy". Before performing the medley, Ochs announced to the audience, "We're going to do a medley of songs of one of the greatest musicians that ever lived, a man who died prematurely, a man who had a big influence on me ... Before I became a protest and folk singer, I had memorized many other things before
Pete Seeger, before Bob Dylan, before
the Weavers, before anything you might have ever heard in New York City, and this is Buddy Holly."
Elvis Costello During the height of punk,
Elvis Costello resembled Holly. He wore his stylized glasses and dressed like him. In his 2022 book
The Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob Dylan wrote, "Elvis Costello and
the Attractions were a better band than any of their contemporaries. Light years better. Elvis himself was a unique figure. Horn-rimmed glasses, quirky, pigeon-toed and intense. The only singer-guitarist in the band. You couldn't say that he didn't remind you of Buddy Holly. The Buddy stereotype. At least on the surface."
Bruce Springsteen In an August 24, 1978, interview with
Rolling Stone,
Bruce Springsteen told
Dave Marsh, "I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on; that keeps me honest."
Grateful Dead The
Grateful Dead performed the song "Not Fade Away" some 531 times in concert between 1968 and 1995 with it often serving as a high-energy set closer.
Richard Barone In 2016,
Richard Barone released his album
Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, paying tribute to the new wave of singer-songwriters in the Village during that pivotal, post-Holly era. The album opens with Barone's version of "Learning the Game", one of the final songs written and recorded by Holly at his home in Greenwich Village, a week before his death.
Film and musical depictions Film Holly's life story inspired a Hollywood biographical film,
The Buddy Holly Story (1978); its lead actor
Gary Busey received a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Holly. The film was widely criticized by the rock press, and by Holly's friends and family, for its inaccuracies. This led Paul McCartney (whose MPL Communications by then controlled the publishing rights to Buddy Holly's song catalog) to produce and host his own documentary about Holly in 1985, titled
The Real Buddy Holly Story. This video includes interviews with Keith Richards, Phil and Don Everly, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, Holly's family, and McCartney, among others. In 1987, musician
Marshall Crenshaw portrayed Buddy Holly in the movie
La Bamba, which depicts him performing at the Surf Ballroom and boarding the fatal airplane with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Crenshaw's version of "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" is featured on the
La Bamba original motion picture soundtrack. Holly's follow up to the hit song "Peggy Sue" is featured in the 1986
Francis Ford Coppola film
Peggy Sue Got Married, in which a 43-year-old mother and housewife facing divorce played by
Kathleen Turner is thrust back in time and given the chance to change the course of her life.
Steve Buscemi appeared as Holly in a brief cameo as a 1950s-themed restaurant employee in
Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film
Pulp Fiction, in which he takes Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega's orders (portrayed respectively by
Uma Thurman and
John Travolta). In 1998, the post-apocalyptic film
Six-String Samurai depicted Holly as a guitar-playing samurai traveling to Las Vegas to become the new king of Nevada after the death of Elvis Presley.
Television Holly was depicted in a 1989 episode of the science-fiction television program
Quantum Leap titled "How the Tess Was Won"; Holly's identity is only revealed at the end of the episode. Dr.
Sam Beckett (
Scott Bakula) influences Buddy Holly to change his lyrics from "piggy, suey" to "Peggy Sue", setting up Holly's future hit song. In the animated series
The Venture Bros., it is implied that the elderly villains Dragoon and Red Mantle are actually Richardson and Buddy Holly, who were recruited into the supervillain organization the Guild of Calamitous Intent on the night of their supposed deaths. The TV documentaries
Without Walls: Not Fade Away (aired on Channel Four in 1996), and
Buddy Holly: Rave On (aired on BBC Four in 2017). The 2022 documentary
The Day the Music Died explores the story behind Don McLean's song "American Pie".
Music •
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, a
jukebox musical depicting Holly's life, opened in 1989. • In 1961,
Mike Berry recorded "
Tribute to Buddy Holly". • In 1979, Swedish pop band
Gyllene Tider recorded the tribute "
Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly" ("If We're Making Love, We're Making Love to Buddy Holly"), which became a top-ten hit in Sweden the following year. • In 1980,
The Clash referenced Holly in their song "If Music Could Talk" from the
Sandinista! album. • In 1985, the German punk band
Die Ärzte composed a song centering on Buddy Holly's glasses, titled "Buddy Holly's Brille". • In 1994,
Weezer's first top 40 single in the US was titled "
Buddy Holly." • In 2006, country band the
Dixie Chicks mention Buddy Holly in their song "
Lubbock or Leave It". Lead singer
Natalie Maines and Holly share a hometown of
Lubbock, Texas. ==Discography==