![]() ![]() By 1959 the hit records tapered off, and Holly was living in New York with his new bride. He advised the group to “carry a bible and READ IT!” yet, according to virtually all accounts, he collected the Crickets’ royalty checks and kept the money. Holly and the Crickets’ association with Petty (who also served as their manager, songwriting partner, and publisher and owned their recordings) was far from all beneficial, however. Soon after, Holly became a star and an icon. Nevertheless, the record had an irrepressible spirit, and by year’s end it became an international multimillion-seller. When the Crickets’ first single, “ That’ll Be the Day,” was released in 1957, their label, Brunswick, did nothing to promote it. ![]() They were the first rock and rollers to approach the recording process in this manner. While crafting tracks such as “ Not Fade Away,” “Peggy Sue,” “Listen to Me,” and “Everyday,” Holly and the Crickets camped out at Petty’s studio for days at a time, using it as a combination laboratory and playground. The Crickets’ records feature unusual microphone placement techniques, imaginative echo chamber effects, and overdubbing, a process that in the 1950s meant superimposing one recording on another. He wanted his recordings to sound classy and expensive, but he also loved to experiment and had a deep bag of sonic tricks. Unlike most independent rock-and-roll producers of the time, Petty did not own any cheap equipment. As a team, they threw away the rule book and let their imaginations loose. Together they created a series of recordings that display an emotional intimacy and sense of detail that set them apart from other 1950s rock and roll. Mauldin on bass, and the great Jerry Allison on drums), began their association with independent producer Norman Petty at his studio in Clovis, New Mexico. In 1957 Holly and his new group, the Crickets (Niki Sullivan on second guitar and background vocals, Joe B. (It is most recognizable in the solo break in “ Peggy Sue.”) In 1956 he signed with Decca Records’s Nashville, Tennessee, division, but the records he made for them sold poorly and were uneven in quality (notwithstanding several outstanding efforts, among them his first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights,” and the rockabilly classic “Midnight Shift”). Late that year he bought a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and developed a style of playing featuring ringing major chords that became his trademark. By 1955, after hearing Elvis Presley, Holly was a full-time rock and roller. Guitar riffs and rhythmic ideas from these three records crop up repeatedly in his work.) Already well versed in country music, bluegrass, and gospel and a seasoned performer by age 16, he became a rhythm-and-blues devotee. (Among the rhythm-and-blues records that seem to have influenced Holly most were “Work with Me, Annie” by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, “Bo Diddley” by Bo Diddley, and “ Love Is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia. The African-American rhythm and blues that Holly heard on the radio had a tremendous impact on him, as it did on countless other white teenagers in the racially segregated United States of the 1950s. ![]()
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