Tag: Buddy Holly

Watch One of R.E.M.’s First Shows

REM 688 Club 1981

Wuxtry Records, where R.E.M.‘s Michael Stipe met record store clerk Peter Buck in Athens, Georgia, is posting videos of early R.E.M. shows. The video below is from an R.E.M. show at The 688 Club opening for Joe “King” Carrasco in February 1981, which is eighteen months before the band released its first collection of songs on vinyl and two years before Murmur was released.

The video begins in the middle of R.E.M. covering Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” and ends with what later would be the band’s debut single, “Radio Free Europe.” Check it out. [2015 Update: The video from the 688 Club is no longer available, so below is the audio of “Radio Free Europe” from another 1981 show at Fridays’s in Greensboro, North Carolina on March 31, 1981.]

For more information on this 40-minute set and other videos, check out the Slicing Up Eyeballs website.

What do you think of the early R.E.M. performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Buddy Holly Disguised His Voice in Falsetto on “Don’t Cha Know”

    dont cha know buddy holly

    More than fifty years ago on September 30, 1958, Buddy Holly produced a record in New York for an unknown singer named Lou Giordano, according to Larry Lehmer’s book The Day the Music Died (p. 41). The B-side of the record was a song written by Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers called “Don’t Cha Know.”

    According to Roger White’s book on the Everly Brothers, Walk Right Back, during the recording, Everly and Holly sang backup.  But they sang falsetto because they could not afford female singers.  Also, because the two singers were under contract with another record company, they did not want anyone to recognize their voices.

    Give it a listen. Can you recognize the voices of Buddy Holly and Phil Everly?

    The A-side of the Giordano record was a song written by Holly called “Stay Close to Me.” Holly never recorded the song himself, and below is Giordano’s version on YouTube.

    Also here is an interesting cover of “Stay Close to Me” by a guy named Ritchie Mars, who plays it a little like Holly might have. Check it out.

    Lou Giordano (Lou Jordan)

    Giordano had a modest hit with the Holly-produced single, but it did not launch a successful singing career for him. A few websites confuse Giordano with a younger music producer with the same name.  The Lou Giordano that Buddy Holly produced changed his performing name to “Lou Jordan” after Holly died.

    Giordano had a wonderful voice and the songs he recorded lead one to wonder why he did not become more popular than he did.  In 1961, Giordano (as “Lou Jordan”) recorded the record “Paradise for Two / Close Your Eyes” backed by the doo wop group The Chaperones.  In 1963, he released another single “Just to Look at You” with the B-side “My Baby.”[See comment below from Giordano’s nephew noting that Giordano passed away in December 1969.]

    Giordano’s daughter noted in an article that Holly changed the singer’s life. Another website notes a mystery about the location of Beltone Studios, where the record was made.

    Still, Giordano’s small body of recorded music gives us a little insight into another question. It tells us something about the work that Holly might have done as a producer of other artists were he still around today.

    What do you think of Holly’s falsetto? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    RIP Dick Clark

    american bandstand dick clark Dick Clark passed away from a heart attack this morning at the age of 82. As a TV host and producer, Clark is known for a number of shows such as New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and the game show The 10,000 Pyramid. But he forever will be considered one of the early great promoters of rock and roll with his show, American Bandstand. Clark originally started out as a substitute host on a local Pennsylvania show Bob Horn’s Bandstand, taking over full time in 1956 and then renaming the show American Bandstand when it moved to ABC in 1957. The show ran regularly — first every weekday and later weekly — through 1987 and then a few more years in syndication. As Clark himself described the show, “I played records, the kids danced, and America watched.”

    In this interview from several years ago on Up Close with Patsy Smullin, Clark talks about his career.

    In this short audio clip, Clark talks with Buddy Holly.

    I’d like to think that somewhere Clark is sitting in a crowd of teenagers holding up a record album and introducing Buddy Holly. RIP gentlemen.

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    The Day the Music Died & American Pie

    Watch a video filled with images explaining possible references in Don McLean’s song “American Pie.”

    day the music died buddy holly book On this date of February 3 in 1959, a small plane crashed in a cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing the pilot Roger Peterson along with his famous passengers: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. The three were on “The Winter Dance Party” tour throughout the Midwest, a tour that also included Dion and a young bass player named Waylon Jennings. The tour traveled by bus, but for the trip to Moorhead, Minnesota, the three performers chartered a plane.

    In the future, Chimesfreedom plans to revisit more of the story, but for today check out this cool video that someone put together for Don McLean‘s song, “American Pie.” The song is celebrating its fortieth anniversary, as around this time in 1972 following the song’s release a few months earlier on Nov. 27, 1971, the song had climbed the charts so you could not turn on the radio without hearing “American Pie.”

    Through the years, McLean has been notoriously vague about specific meanings of the imagery in the song, but it is widely accepted that the opening and refrain of the song centers on his memories of hearing about the death of the three singers in the plane crash. In his memory, he wondered what would happen to rock and roll after such a great loss, which led to an era of Pat Boone and Fabian songs.

    Of course, now we know, unfortunately, that rock an roll has survived many such losses since then, but these were the early days. Anyway, the video does a good job of explaining some of the imagery, and even if it is not 100% correct about the images, it provides an interesting interpretation to much of the song. Check it out.

    What do you think “American Pie” means? What is your favorite song by Buddy Holly or the others? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Well … All Right: Buddy’s 75th Birthday Roundup

    Buddy Holly Collection Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, meaning that this Wednesday, the man we came to know as Buddy Holly would have been 75 years old. I like to think there is some universe where Buddy is still making music. But in this universe, we will have to make due with the great music he left us when he died in 1959 at the young age of 22 on a flight from Mason City, Iowa to Moorhead, Minnesota.

    Around the web there are a number of stories celebrating the 75th birthday of the rock pioneer from Lubbock, Texas. Check out the links below (if you want an image of Buddy to guide you while you read this website, click this link).

    – Tribute CDs: Because it is all about the music, the best place to start may be this Rolling Stone link that is offering a free stream of the forthcoming tribute CD, Listen to Me: Buddy Holly (2011). The free steam is only up for a limited time, so now is the time to check out the CD, featuring Stevie Nicks, The Fray, Ringo Starr, and others. Chris Isaak’s version of “Crying Waiting Hoping” is a highlight, but I do not get the point of Eric Idle’s Monty Python-esque reading of “Raining in My Heart.” USA Today has a review of the CD. While the CD has some nice covers, nothing comes close to the originals, of course. Another tribute CD, Rave On Buddy Holly, was out earlier this year, and is reviewed by The Aquarian Weekly. I am a fan of a previous tribute CD, Not Fade Away (1996), featuring The Band, Nanci Griffith, Joe Ely, and the Mavericks. That CD features a haunting “Learning the Game” from Holly’s bassist Waylon Jennings.

    – Walk of Fame: KCBD notes that the birthday celebration includes a new star on the Walk of Fame. Lubbock Online explains how the star event has turned into an overdue celebration.

    – Buddy Holly’s Widow: Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Santiago-Holly, talks to Rolling Stone about the tributes. But Amarillo.com explains why Holly’s widow is trying to stop a tribute concert by a Buddy Holly impersonator.

    – Holly’s Relevance: In Holly’s hometown, Lubbock Online ponders why Holly is still relevant more than fifty years after his death. Similarly, the Houston Chronicle lists several reasons Buddy Holly still has a hold on us at 75.

    – Gary Busey as Holly: TMZ posted a video of Gary Busey, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his outstanding portrayal of Holly in The Buddy Holly Story (1978). In the video, Busey made a recent karaoke attempt to reprise his Holly-style singing on “Maybe Baby” (not for the faint of heart).

    – Life & Career: In “Buddy Holly’s 75th on Wednesday; That’ll Be the Day,” the Los Angeles Times talks to some who remember Holly and discusses the new tribute CDs. Similarly, Cybergrass recounts Holly’s career and discusses the new CD.

    – Odd Tributes to Holly’s Glasses: Finally, for two odd Holly-related photos that were recently posted: First, the Silver Lining Opticians Blog features a photo of Holly to promote a style of spectacles (or you may see how you would look in Holly’s glasses at buddyholly.me). Second, NewMexicoBoxing.com has a photo of boxer Eric Henson, who is nicknamed “Buddy Holly.” You will be able to guess why from the photo.

    Somewhat surprisingly, as the day approaches, there is not as much written about Buddy Holly’s 75th birthday on the web as one might expect. Much of of the news about Holly is related to the new tribute CD. Perhaps because he died so long ago, fewer people connect to him the way we connect to anniversaries regarding John Lennon or Elvis Presley. Oh well, maybe there is not much new to say as long as we have the music.

    “Now, no matter what you think about rock and roll,” check out this clip of Holly singing “Peggy Sue” on The Arthur Murray Dance Party from December 29, 1957, with an introduction that reminds us that Buddy Holly and rock music was on the cutting edge of the times. Thus, he rightfully was among the initial class of ten performer inductees when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame began in 1986. Buddy, hope you are having a great birthday in your universe.

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