Review: Buddy Holly - Buddy Holly (1958)
Tracks: 1) I’m Gonna Love You Too; 2) Peggy Sue; 3) Look At Me; 4) Listen To Me; 5) Valley Of Tears; 6) Ready Teddy; 7) Everyday; 8) Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues; 9) Words Of Love; 10) (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care; 11) Rave On; 12) Little Baby.
REVIEW
It so happened that, for all the tiny amount of time he had to himself on this Earth, Buddy had to share it between two formal careers — as the semi-anonymous leader of «the Crickets» and as a solo artist. The only real difference, however, was that as «The Crickets», Buddy’s backing band worked together with «The Picks» and had this rather questionable tendency to drift off into suave doo-wop territory. In other words, as illogical and anti-intuitive as it may seem, (1) Buddy Holly + the Crickets = «Buddy Holly»; (2) Buddy Holly + the Crickets + the Picks = «The Crickets». What this really means for us is that, of the two completed LPs released by Buddy in his lifetime, the self-titled Buddy Holly is, on the whole, a slightly better showcase for his songwriting talents and personal charisma — even if, like so many pop LPs of the time, it neither succeeds in being totally filler-free, nor even tries to. Then again, out of five «Buddy Holly» singles released up to that point, it does include three of the best ones and discard two of the more passable ones, meaning that, up to a certain point, quality control did matter.
Be that as it may, the inclusion of ʽReady Teddyʼ and ʽBaby I Don’t Careʼ, two songs more typically associated with Elvis (and, in the case of the former, Little Richard, of course), has more of a symbolic nature to it — Buddy openly aligning himself with the leading «rockers» of the day — than actual entertainment value. For all his versatility, Buddy could never dream of outplaying the King and his backing band on that toughness-meets-tightness field, nor could he dashingly open up some new, hitherto unsuspected dimension in these songs (at the time, they were way too proverbially one-dimensional to be openable up to anything else, though eventually technological and spiritual evolution would change that — even John Lennon in 1975, it could be argued, would reinvent ʽReady Teddyʼ quite radically, if not necessarily for the better). His forced little roar on ‘Ready Teddy’ is more likely to raise a condescending smile than a couple of tightly clenched fists, and the juggling of high- and low-pitched vocals on ‘You’re So Square’ feels much too imitative of Elvis as well.
Also problematic is the inclusion of Fats Domino’s ʽValley Of Tearsʼ, though the revision of this Fats Domino classic is easier to defend — not only does it feature a somewhat special «funeral parlor» organ part played by Norman Petty, but Buddy also does not try to recapture the lazy New Orleanian nonchalance of the original, instead giving it a more romantic, fragile reading which certainly suits him better. I guess that in the process they take all the New Orleans out of the song, but that’s OK, Buddy Holly and New Orleans were never meant for each other anyway.
Yet even if we treat all those covers as filler, I would still take solid rock’n’roll filler over shaky doo-wop filler any day, even more so if the filler in question is interspersed with the single largest number of indisputable original classics on a Buddy album. ʽPeggy Sueʼ, ʽI’m Gonna Love You Tooʼ, ʽWords Of Loveʼ, ʽRave Onʼ, ʽEvery Dayʼ — each of these is practically an institution in itself, definitely so if we judge «objectively», on the basis of received accolades and tributary covers. As simple and natural and obvious as these melodies sound, most of them were actually written either by Buddy or by his closest partners — on a pre-existing basis of blues, folk, and country chord sequences, but with their own unique input which only added to the overall catchiness.
ʽPeggy Sueʼ, in particular, had a strange kind of magic to it that won the hearts of both Lennon and McCartney — and it would be incorrect to think that this only had to do with the insane paradiddles of Jerry Allison, since the song works fine even without its percussive thunderstorm (look for a charming McCartney solo acoustic performance from 1975); actually, the vocal melody, replete with all of its hiccups, pretty much sets the standard for «not-one-note-wasted catchy pop formula», and must have served as the guiding star for the Beatles throughout their career. The lyrics, the subject, the mood — trivial to quasi-embarrassment; the vocal movement is all that matters. (There is even a bit of playfully fake «darkness» as the bridge cuts in with an almost threatening «pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy Sue...» before the sun comes out again — a musical red herring if there ever was one within a two-minute pop song).
In terms of complexity and instrumentation, ʽWords Of Loveʼ, a song that was not even a single, is the clear winner, although I must insist that the tune was brought to absolute sonic perfection only six years later, by the Beatles and George Martin — they happened to see the amazing potential of that sweetly stinging guitar ring, only hinted at in Petty’s original production, and realize all of it; I am pretty sure that Buddy himself, had he had the chance, would have acknowledged the superiority of Harrison’s lead playing and Martin’s production. Nevertheless, this here is the original, and even if the vocal melody may seem a bit sappy, the guitar lines provide the very foundation of the «jangle-pop» skyscraper, to be erected by millions of Buddy’s followers. This, after all, was the man who was taking the art of sweet sentimental balladry away from professional hacks, glossy syrupy orchestras, and formulaic crooning vocalists, and restoring it to legions of passionate kids with guitars, almost singlehandedly. Some of those kids would do it better; but few, if any, could have thought of doing it before. Where did that A-D-E-A guitar melody even come from? What inspired it? What preceded it? How come it embodies so perfectly the feelings you feel when softly caressing a loved one? As far as I can tell, there is simply no better proof of the touch of genius on that man than this particular bit of composing.
Needless to say, next to ‘Words Of Love’ Buddy’s more rock-oriented originals look a tad more pale. Still, ʽRave Onʼ and ʽI’m Gonna Love You Tooʼ combine pop catchiness with energetic beat pretty damn well. ‘Love You Too’, in terms of structure and lyrics, seems to mimic the old folk song tradition, which gives the song a blunt, stubborn edge — the repeated title at the end of each verse almost sounds like a mantra, and the ah-ah-ah harmonies are like a triumphant war cry, emitted by somebody who is damn certain of impending victory. (Twenty years later, it would be fun to see the gender values of the song inverted when Debbie Harry would appropriate the song to depict her own imaginary conquests). And while ‘Rave On’ is much too melodically similar to ‘Oh Boy’ (no surprise here, since itinerant Texan songwriter Sonny West was essentially responsible for both), its slightly slower tempo actually suits Buddy better, giving him more time to lay out the trap of his vocal inflections.
The pure pop songwriting craft is not always on the level of ‘Words Of Love’, either: thus, ‘Listen To Me’ slips into formula (the ringing guitar melody is essentially a slight variation on the ‘Words Of Love’ riff), and ‘Look At Me’ delivers its folksy quatrains with sympathy and charm, but no original hooks. Yet for every so-so composition there may be found a brilliant antidote like ‘Everyday’, with an inventive arrangement featuring the celesta as a lead instrument and knee-slapping as primary percussion — another excellent attempt at creating an atmosphere of purry heavenly delight with minimal means, instead of relying on the tried and true Hollywood orchestration. Also interesting is a stab at making 12-bar blues go pop: ‘Mailman Bring Me No More Blues’, driven by Vi Petty’s honky tonk piano and sung by Buddy in sort of a Hank Williams manner — plaintive, soulful, and seductive, instead of dark and grizzly in the classic blues manner; hardly a highlight, but it is amusing that this was one of the tunes played by the Beatles during their Get Back sessions, when they were dusting off their blues chops while still clinging on to pop stylistics.
It is a little funny that Buddy’s name appears less frequently in the songwriting credits on this album than it does on the Crickets’ debut — and yet the record still feels a pinch more «Buddy-true» in the end. Slowly, but surely, Holly was coming into his own as a visionary songwriter, moving away from the general rock’n’roll stylistics of his peers and into the realm of rock’n’roll-influenced, but deeply individual, popcraft, where his nerdy looks, shakey-hiccupy vocals, and simplistically sincere attitude could provide far huger benefits than ‘Ready Teddy’ or ‘Rock Me My Baby’. There were understandable limits to that shift in the context of late Fifties’ America, but it certainly was a shift that went much deeper than just taking off his glasses on the album cover — a move which you could with equal probability call coldly calculated (because hot girls do not go for guys with glasses) or boldly executed (because how can you truly establish a soul-to-soul connection with those heavy FAOSA frames?).
Only Solitaire: Buddy Holly reviews