Buddy Holly was one of the first rock and roll singers to be influenced by rock and roll. Raised in musical family, he learned to play fiddle at young age and had mastered guitar, banjo, and mandolin by the time he was fifteen. He played in duet with his childhood friend Bob Montgomery; Bob & Buddy enjoyed some success playing a blend of bluegrass and Western swing they called Western bop. Holly's life changed when he heard Elvis Presley on the radio. Holly, who sought out African American music on the AM radio stations of southern Texas, recognized Presley's fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. Bob & Buddy added an upright bass player and a drummer to their act and began crafting rock and roll songs; a few months later, after opening for Bill Haley and the Comets, Holly was offered a contract by the prestigious Decca label. Though he recorded a few singles, none were issued.
Holly and his band worked with Norman Petty, an independent record producer, to make a demo of their most promising songs. One was "That'll Be the Day," which had been rejected by Decca. An executive at Coral Records liked the song, but there was a problem: Coral was a subsidiary of Decca, and the label's executives still didn't believe the song was worth releasing. After some legal maneuvering the disc was released on Brunswick, another Decca subsidiary, but because he was still constrained by the terms of his solo contract, Holly's name did not appear on the record; the song was attributed to the Crickets. "That'll Be the Day" was the first of a string of seven top forty hits for Holly and the Crickets that would have assuredly continued if the singer had not died tragically in 1959.
Despite his short career, Buddy Holly was an influential force in early rock and roll. Holly was one of the first white artists to record mostly his own material, and he was allowed great creative freedom by his record label. Instead of reporting to the Decca or Coral studios when he and the Crickets were ready to cut a new disc, they worked wherever they wished and presented Decca with the masters, which gave the band more freedom to experiment, as is evident from their recordings. Their hit records make sophisticated use of instruments like the celesta and temple blocks, sound colors never before associated with rock and roll. Holly wrote in a variety of forms and styles with equal authority; many of his biggest hits were ballads and romantic pop songs, but he was also capable of penning thoughtful and introspective lyrics. One barometer of the progressive nature of his songwriting is that a number of B-sides and miscellaneous tracks were covered in the 1960s and 1970s by other artists, and none sounded dated.
Holly also anticipated a number of rock's future trends. The Crickets' performance of "Oh Boy" on the Ed Sullivan Show yields not only a raspy vocal tone and full-throated yowl that anticipated emulation of African American vocal techniques favored by British invasion bands, but also aggressive, thrashing guitar that predates heavy metal by two decades.
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Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Clyde McPhatter, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams
Must Haves:
 "Peggy Sue"
"Everyday"
"Rave On"
"Not Fade Away"
"Maybe Baby"
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and the Hollies (named in tribute), Elvis Costello
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