Holly; not just for Christmas

May 27th – There are some performers in the pop world who don’t have to don an outfit of rebellion in order to get noticed; they do it by the sheer quality of their musical output and nous.

You have to wonder where Kylie Minogue would be if she’d relied on her own song writing ability when she first started out. Stock, Aitkin and Waterman were around at just the right time, as they were for Dead or Alive or Rick Astley…although I have to wish they hadn't been in the case of those last two, but…

I think my musical snobbery will show through now, but I have to say I believe a singer/song writer is a talent but a singer is just a mouthpiece…ooo, bugger… Wow. Now how does that make me stand with Sinatra? I’ll have to think about that bit…

OK, row a back a little, I believe a singer/song writer is a talent but most singers are just an interpreter. Have I salvaged my credibility? Maybe not, but now you know for sure I don’t rehearse these things I write, you get it as I think it, warts an’ all. That way you can say, out loud and to friends if you like;

“Peter, that’s bollocks.”

And, if nothing else, it gets you making the decisions on these weighty matters (?!) and deciding how you view them. Anyhow, these other singers may put a song over really well but that’s the extent of their talent; they are just a voice and as often as not have no instrumental ability. That’s not to say some of them haven’t got a way with a tune but I much prefer to see and hear singer/songwriters selling their wares; it’s one of the things that I most admired about Buddy Holly.

Described by critics as;

‘The single-most influential creative force in early rock and roll’

for me he was the quintessential, best-pal performer, the person who spoke most directly to me. Not about shocking events or risqué ideologies but about life for everyday people, folk just like me. He managed to cross over into the black consciousness when everyone else struggled and his direct, no-nonsense lyrics spoke to anyone who’d been in love, felt injustice or just wanted to have a good time whilst not hurting anyone. Those who felt his influence are legion (Dylan, Elton John, Lennon, McCartney, Keith Richards, Springsteen…the list goes on) and they pay him ample tribute in the why’s and wherefore’s of how they got to where they got to; but Mr. Holly’s influence was deeper than other performers track to fame. What he did was reduce what it felt like to be a post-war teenager in the 50’s. If you only listen to ten records this year, make four of them That’ll Be the Day (released on this day in 1957) and Words of Love (both written and performed by Mr. Holly) and Love Is Strange and Rave On, written by others but performed by Mr. Holly to become, even in the words of the songwriters, ‘the gold standard’.

There’s two particular quotes that I recall from Mr. Holly that about sum him up really: 

“I’m not trying to stump anybody; it’s the beauty of the language I’m interested in”. 

You only have to read the lyrics to his songs to see how right he got that one.
And:

“Death is very often referred to as a good career move.”

You only have to read the eulogies of the famous to see how right he got that one.