Buddy Holly: Rave On

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Buddy Holly

1515 Productions Ltd

George Scott

Nick de Grunwald

Celia Moore

Jerry Allison

Maria Elena Holly

Larry Holley

Sonny West

David Bigham

Kevin Montgomery

Don McLean

Edna Gundersen

Paul Anka

Dion DiMucci

Sonny Curtis

Bob Harris

Don Everly

Albert Lee

Hank Marvin

Robert Wyatt

Brian May

Larry Welborn

Documentaries

Music: Classic Pop & Rock

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

12/05/2017

BBC Four - Buddy Holly: Rave On

The story of Buddy Holly's life and career through interviews with those who knew him.

Film telling the story of Buddy Holly's tragically short life and career through interviews with those who knew and worked with him, combined with contributions from music fans.

He was lanky, he wore glasses and he sang as if permanently battling hiccups. Aesthetically, Buddy Holly might have been the most unlikely looking rock 'n' roll star of the 50s. But he was, after Elvis Presley, unquestionably the most influential.

It was an all-too-brief career that lasted barely 18 months from That'll Be The Day topping the Billboard charts to the plane crash in February 1959 in Iowa that took Holly's life. That day was immortalised in Don McLean's 1971 song American Pie, and has become known as 'the day the music died'.

This film tells the story of Buddy Holly's tragically short life and career through interviews with those who knew him and worked with him. This combined with contributions from music fans paints a picture of an artist who changed music. Rock 'n' roll started with Elvis, but pop music started with Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

In an age of solo stars, Holly also led the first recognisable 'pop' group, The Crickets, who in name alone inspired The Beatles. As a songwriter, he revolutionised rock 'n' roll by introducing dynamic new rhythms and unpredictable melodies beyond its traditional blues roots. In his songs, written and recorded in the late 50s, we can already hear the beat group sound of the 60s and beyond.

Buddy Holly's story remains one of the most dramatic tales in rock 'n' roll, one which nearly 60 years after his breakthrough hit That'll Be The Day, deserves to be told again for a new generation. His life was tragically short. His legacy is triumphantly infinite.

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