Holly was a remarkable talent. You can’t help but wonder what would have been...
In a way, yeah. But there's an old saying, when you pick people to admire, pick dead ones because they can't blow it. :^) He probably would have had some higher notes, and been washed up by about 1964. And that kind of hurts me to type it. I wish they could have all made a safe trip (IOW, not gotten on that plane) and had the ordinary joys of life, and try not to worry too much about what else might have been.
I've got a CD collection of Valens as well. There's at least one track taken from a show he did at his old high school or something, and he turned a little off-mike to adjust his tuning or put on a capo or something that he forgot to do, and you can just make out his voice saying, "I'm gettin' old." He died at 17.
A friend of mine sat in as the Crickets’ drummer several times.