This date in 1936 saw the birth of Buddy Holly. 10 things you might not know about him:
His real name was Charles Hardin Holley. "Buddy" was his childhood nickname, and the spelling of his surname came about as a result of a spelling mistake on his contract with Decca records in 1956.
One of his earliest musical appearances was alongside his brothers in a local talent show. He appeared with a Violin. He couldn’t play it, so his brother Larry greased the bow so it would not make any sound. The brothers won the contest.
The song Peggy Sue was originally written as “Cindy Lou” after Holly’s niece. However, co-writer Jerry Allison prevailed upon the others to name it after his girlfriend, Peggy Sue Gerron.
The song That’ll be the Day, which topped the charts in 1957, was inspired by a John Wayne movie called The Searchers, which Holly went to see in 1956. "That'll be the day" was a line John Wayne uttered several times in the film.
Formed in 1956, the Crickets consisted of Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, and Joe B. Mauldin. At first, they called themselves The Two Tones.
He was known for his distinctive horn-rimmed glasses. He needed the glasses, because he had 20/800 vision. However, to begin with, he wore nondescript plastic and wire-framed glasses. It was his optician, Dr. J. Davis Armistead, who suggested he tried a new style, like those of Phil Silvers’s character, “Sergeant Bilko”.
In his home town of Lubbock, Texas, there is a 5-foot tall, 13-foot wide, 750-pound sculpture of the glasses, created by Lubbock artist Steve Teeters, which has stood at the entrance to the Buddy Holly Center since 2002.
He met his wife, María Elena Santiago, during a visit to a New York music publisher where she worked. He asked her out the first time they met and proposed on their first date. He married her despite advice that being married might disappoint his fans and hinder his career. When Maria accompanied the band on tours, she’d be passed off as the Crickets' secretary.
The Crickets were an influence on other up and coming artists of the time, including The Beatles. In fact, when the Fab Four were trying to come up with a better name for themselves than the Quarrymen, the Crickets inspired them to think of insects. Beetles became Beatles, a musical pun.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on February 3, 1959, Holly was killed when the aircraft he was on crashed into a cornfield five miles northwest of Clear Lake, Iowa, shortly after take-off. (see American Pie). Holly was 22 years old. The wreckage was strewn across 100 yards. Holly’s glasses weren’t found until the spring, when the snow melted. They were handed in to the sheriff's office and ended up in storage until they were discovered there in 1980.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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