With respect, I think you are being hyperbolic to prove a point but that hype undermines rather than bolsters it.
Never thought you would find someone touting Holly? Does Linda Ronstadt ring a bell? Bruce Springsteen? The Beatles? How about the Stones you just complimented? One of the songs they first broke big with was Not Fade Away - a Holly tune.
He was on the Ed Sullivan show - alive, obviously - which tends to disprove the ‘celebrity through death only’ theory.
As the original article states, Holly established the Fender Stratocaster as THE iconic solidbody guitar (along with Les Paul’s model) - a status it still holds today even after decades of competitors and advances in technology.
These are empirical, not personal, anecdotes. Yes there’s passion involved but mostly history and fact.
‘How about the Stones you just complimented?’
Since it’s been mentioned, lets hear from the Stones on the subject:
“To me, Chuck Berry always was the epitome of rhythm and blues playing, rock and roll playing. It was beautiful, effortless, and his timing was perfection. He is rhythm supreme. He plays that lovely double-string stuff, which I got down a long time ago, but I’m still getting the hang of. Later I realized why he played that way–because of the sheer physical size of the guy. I mean, he makes one of those big Gibsons look like a ukulele!”
– guitarist Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones
- See more at: http://chuckberry.com/about/quotes/#sthash.BLF8sggZ.dpuf
Okay, back to Holly. If anyone is up for an extended quote, this may explain some of Holly’s long-lived appeal:
“For a young musician, all the Buddy Holly classics are a brilliant place to start. He played rhythmic chords in a lot of his solos, instead of over-flashy pyrotechnic guitar playing. There’s no doubt that he was innovative and ahead of his time. The recording technique that he used – multitracking – had only just been invented by Les Paul. Most people in those days would just record live, using justone microphone.
My favourite track is “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”. It is a very beautiful and sad song – but the chord structure is quite uplifting, and it has an amazing string section on it as well.
Right at the end of his life, Holly was moving away from simple rock’n’roll music to something far more complex, such as in the songs “Moondreams”, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” and “Raining In My Heart”.
...
Before him, artists didn’t write their own songs, and he was a complete holistic entity. He produced his own music, he performed it and he also wrote it. He was a brilliant songwriter; really simple, to the point, beautifully constructed two- or three-minute pop songs. That was a benchmark for bands such as The Beatles.
My kids enjoy the music as much as I do, and I am sure something in that music will appeal to the human race for ever, because its subject matter and delivery are so soulful. It’s something we all need to help us along.
From:
‘Buddy was way ahead of the pack’
By Richard Hawley