{"id":200,"date":"2016-04-01T17:44:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/?p=200"},"modified":"2016-04-01T18:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T18:25:56","slug":"before-they-were-famous-buddy-holly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/2016\/04\/01\/before-they-were-famous-buddy-holly\/","title":{"rendered":"Before they were famous: Buddy Holly"},"content":{"rendered":"With this blog post, we are beginning a new series of biographies of famous Texans, before they were famous, in which we research the lives of Texans in their hometown newspapers. Currently, TDNP hosts so many newspaper title runs that we are very excited to learn what we can about our now-famous Texans.\u00a0 For the first post, we have a guest writer, one of the Digital Newspaper Unit’s student assistants, Patrick Alonzo, who normally works on scanning the full-color newspapers you can find in the Texas Digital Newspaper Program. Patrick grew up in Lubbock, Texas, and he actually scanned many of the issues of the Westerner World<\/em> that he mentions in the post below.\u00a0 \n<\/em>\n\n
\"buddy\"<\/a>

Texas State Historical Association. The Texas Historian, Volume 49, Number 1, September 1988. Austin, Texas. The Portal to Texas History<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed April 1, 2016.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n\nA long long time ago\nI can still remember how\nThat music used to make me smile\nAnd I knew if I had my chance\nThat I could make those people dance\nAnd maybe they’d be happy for a while<\/em>\n\n-Don McLean, \u201cAmerican Pie\u201d <\/em>\n\nA long, long time ago, before he became a music legend, Charles Hardin Holley, better known as \u201cBuddy Holly,\u201d was just another kid attending Lubbock High School in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, in the early 1950\u2019s. Now with the LHS newspaper, the Westerner World<\/em>, available on The Portal to Texas History, we get a glimpse of the young Holley\u2019s school days before he became the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer that history knows him as today.\n\nWhile searching through the collection of newspapers from Buddy\u2019s time in high school, it was a bit surprising to not find any issues with Holley\u2019s picture in them. Looking back on it now, it seems odd that the most famous man from Lubbock, whose face and name could be recognized by musicians the world over, could not even find his way into the school paper. But perhaps his lack of appearances in the paper highlights how much of a \u201cnormal guy\u201d he was at the time, a time before appearing on The Ed Sullivan<\/em> Show<\/em> before millions of people, before performing in concerts around the world.\n\nThough his face may not be found among the many photos of drama club actors and football players, Holley\u2019s name can still be found in<\/a> a number of issues from 1953-1955, although you\u2019d have to search for both \u201cHolly\u201d and \u201cHolley\u201d due to typos in some issues. Back in those days, he was still known as \u201cHolley\u201d with an \u201ce,\u201d and it wouldn\u2019t be until later, when he began his music career, that he would become famous as \u201cHolly,\u201d ironically because of the same typo.\n\nMost often, Buddy is mentioned in the paper for having provided music at school events. It looks like Holly never passed up a chance to entertain others. Whether it was at a sophomore-grade assembly, an all-school party, or an all-night \"telethon\"<\/a>telethon on KDUB-TV, Holly seemed to take every opportunity he could to showcase his talents. It comes as no surprise that he would win the contest for \u201cwestern instrument\u201d in the school\u2019s 1954 Round-Up show<\/a>. Even back then, others could recognize Holly\u2019s skill with a guitar.\n\n\"Buddy<\/a>Apparently music wasn\u2019t the only thing that occupied Holley\u2019s time in high school. Many issues from the Western World talk about his work as vice-president of the Vocational Industrial Club of Industrial Co-operative Training, and although I can only guess as to what he did in the club, I\u2019d be willing to bet that just as with his music, Holley excelled there as well. For proof, you\u2019d need look no further than the issue from March 26, 1954,<\/a> which lists Holley as the first place winner in the competition for parliamentary procedure and drafting at the club\u2019s district meet in Levelland, Texas. According to one issue<\/a>, Buddy got to go to Austin to the state meeting of the Vocational Industrial Club of Texas.\n\nToday, generations of music fans love and admire Buddy Holley, but back in high school, there was one person in particular who had special feelings for him–his high school sweetheart, Echo McGuire. One issue from 1953 lists Buddy and Echo in a segment simply titled, \u201cDaters.\u201d\n\n\"valentines\"<\/a>\n\nIn fact, it seems the two were together throughout almost all of their time in high school.\u00a0 One issue from 1955<\/a> tells about how the two went to Nona Gregg\u2019s 18th<\/sup> birthday party at\u00a0 the K.N. Clapp Party House in Lubbock. Another\u00a0 reports on their attending of the Y-Teen Sweetheart Banquet together<\/a> on Valentine\u2019s Day. Events like these, no matter how small and insignificant, paint an important picture of Holley\u2019s youth, and although he\u2019s no longer with us to share in these memories, we love having the chance to read about such moments. From the concerts in front of sold-out crowds to the good times with a few friends, all of these moments made up the Buddy Holly we know now and just as important, the Buddy Holley that came before.\n<\/em>\n\n\u00a0I can’t remember if I cried<\/em>\n\nWhen I read about his widowed bride<\/em>\n\nBut something touched me deep inside<\/em>\n\nThe day the music died<\/em>\n\n

\"Buddy<\/a>

Texas State Historical Association. The Texas Historian, Volume 49, Number 1, September 1988. Austin, Texas. The Portal to Texas History.<\/a> Accessed April 1, 2016.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n\nDon McLean sang about the day the music died, and on that fateful February day, Lubbock lost its favorite son. On that day, a rising star in the world of music, though burning brightly, burned out much too early. However, although the music may have died, we must always remember that it was indeed real, and at one time, you could find it in a small, cotton-farming city in West Texas where many nights you can hear little more than the wind howling across the plains. But if you were fortunate enough in 1953 to be in a certain high school auditorium on a certain day in March, you\u2019d hear something else. You\u2019d hear the voice of a young man with a guitar in his hand and a smile on his face, and you\u2019d know, just for that moment, the music surely was alive.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With this blog post, we are beginning a new series of biographies of famous Texans, before they were famous, in which we research the lives of Texans in their hometown newspapers. Currently, TDNP hosts so many newspaper title runs that we are very excited to learn what we can about our now-famous Texans.\u00a0 For the… Read more »<\/a>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5tTwO-3e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/tdnp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}