On this day 7 September, 1936: Charles Hardin Holley (Buddy Holly) was born.
Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, inspired the Beatles own name. Buddy Holly who inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney to play, sing, and write their own songs.
Quoting John Lennon: “Buddy Holly was the first one that we were really aware of in England who could play and sing at the same time – not just strum, but actually play the licks” .
Holly wrote original material, further inspiring the Beatles to do likewise.. Quoting Paul:”I still like Buddy’s vocal style. And his writing. One of the main things about The Beatles is that we started out writing our own material.
People these days take it for granted that you do, but nobody used to then. John I started to write because of Buddy Holly. It was like, ‘Wow! He writes and is a musician.
And throughout the Quarrymen/Beatles’ existence, they played a total of at least 13 Buddy Holly songs in live shows:
“Baby I Don’t Care (You’re So Square)”, 1960-61
“Crying, Waiting, Hoping”, 1960-62
“Everyday”, 1957-62
“It’s So Easy”, 1958-62
“Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues”, 1961-62
“Maybe Baby”, 1958-61
“Midnight Shift”, 1960-62
“Peggy Sue”, 1957-62
“Raining in My Heart”, 1959-62
“Reminiscing”, 1962-63
“That’ll Be the Day”, 1957-60
“Think it Over”, 1958-62
“Words of Love”, 1958-62
Recordings of the Beatles’ performances of these Buddy Holly songs exist for only 6 of the 13 listed above.
The first professional recording the Beatles (then the Quarrymen) ever made was their rendition of “That’ll Be The Day”, recorded July 1958, but not commercially released until The Beatles Anthology 1.
The only other Buddy Holly song to date as far back as 1957 was “Peggy Sue”, which John Lennon recorded for his 1975 album Rock ‘n’ Roll. The Beatles first recorded “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” as part of their ill-fated Decca audition on New Year’s Day 1962.
They recorded it again on 16 July 1963 for the radio show Pop Goes the Beatles, the product of which was included on the album The Beatles: Live at the BBC.The Beatles played “Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues” in their live shows from 1961-62, but never recorded it until January 1969, during the Get Back sessions, which was included on The Beatles Anthology 3. The Beatles never recorded “Maybe Baby” until January 1969, when they jammed during the Get Back sessions. The A-side companion of “Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues” was the classic “Words of Love”, which the Beatles included on their 1964 album Beatles for Sale.The Beatles also recorded “Reminiscing” in Hamburg in 1962, which was released many years later on the album Live! At The Star-Club.
Though the Beatles never recorded “Raining in My Heart”, John Lennon paraphrased the opening lyrics (“The sun is out, the sky is blue”) in “Dear Prudence”. And although the Beatles themselves never recorded “It’s So Easy”, Paul McCartney has played it in his live shows. Lastly, though the Beatles never recorded “Think it Over”, Ringo Starr did perform the tune as part of the 2011 tribute album Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, issued in honor of what would have been Holly’s 75th birthday.