That’s why, when Buddy Holly returned to Petty’s studio in January of 1957 and cut a demo, Norman recognized that Holly had greatly evolved.
But in early 1957, he also was still looking to get involved with talent that would translate into national success. Less successful than the legendary Sam Phillips of Memphis’ Sun records who discovered Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, Petty still had a reputation for recognizing performers that he plugged either to record companies or radio stations. Norman Petty was one of the many small time independents that operated on the fringes of 1950’s rock and roll. The best Buddy could come up with was heading to Clovis, New Mexico and the Norman Petty Studio to pay for his own demo and hope to interest a regional industry professional, in this case Norman Petty, in getting interested in representing Holly. If you were out of Lubbock, Texas in 1957 and had just been dropped from a major label there wasn’t much of a Plan B. Norman Petty Studios, Clovis, New Mexicoġ957 began with Buddy getting a predictable release from his Decca contract. By the seventh grade, he was playing with another junior high school student, Bob Montgomery, in a duet called Buddy and Bob, mostly country music covers of artists like Hank Williams. Despite Lubbock’s location in the heart of the bible belt, Holly was also intrigued by country and rhythm and blues popular tunes that were available via radio stations from larger midwestern radio stations. The family was Baptist and deeply religious, attending church routinely but singing hymns from an early age probably developed Buddy’s interest in music. Nicknamed Buddy by his mother, as she considered “Charles,” too formal, he was the youngest of four siblings. The “e” in his surname would be dropped when Decca Records misspelled Holley on one of his first recording contracts. Buddy Holly, early Brunswick Records publicity photoĬharles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock, Texas on September 7, 1936. That determination changed American popular music forever. Although he claimed to strike a deal that would have given him a percentage of “That’ll Be the Day” earnings, Sullivan maintained that the only money he was ever paid for his Crickets tenure was a weekly stipend while on tour in 1957, a small severance check shortly after his departure and royalties on “I’m Gonna Love You Too.On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly was in the middle of the tour from hell and would do anything to avoid another three hundred mile, overnight bus ride that already had inflicted frostbite on another band member. Sullivan’s contribution to the group was not recognized in the 1978 biopic The Buddy Holly Story. He then headed to Los Angeles where he joined Soul Incorporated before retiring as a performer and working for Sony Electronics. Sullivan signed his own label deal after his departure and a single, “It’s All Over,” enjoyed some regional success. Holly left the Crickets in the fall of 1958 he was killed in a plane crash in February 1959. Holly and the Crickets initially performed as a trio, eventually bringing guitarist Tommy Allsup on board. I took things more personal than the other guys did.” “We all did pick on each other,” Sullivan said in the Holly biography Remembering Buddy, “but it really grated on me. The guitarist claimed to never quite fit in with Holly, Allison and bassist Joe Mauldin, whose penchant for teasing and pranks while on the road never sat well with Sullivan. Though Holly often went to outside vocalists for backing on his songs, Sullivan provided the additional voice on two of Holly’s bigger hits, “That’ll Be the Day” and “Not Fade Away.”ĭespite being in on the group’s success (“That’ll Be the Day” topped the charts in August 1957), Sullivan’s tenure was short-lived.
Sullivan, who was delivering flowers for a living at the time, was with the band for the early 1957 sessions that yielded “That’ll Be the Day” and “I’m Looking for Someone to Love,” and was a regular part of Holly’s touring troupe at the time. Upon learning that Sullivan played guitar, Holly asked him to retrieve his instrument from his car, and with drummer Jerry Allison they began working on songs. Sullivan stumbled into a musical partnership with Holly in late 1956, when a mutual friend took him along to Holly’s house to record the future legend with a hand-held tape deck. Unbeknownst to them at the time, the two were actually third cousins. Guitarist Niki Sullivan, who played rhythm guitar and sang background vocals in Buddy Holly’s Crickets, died on April 6th he was sixty-six.īorn in Southgate, California, Sullivan and his family eventually found their way to Lubbock, Texas, where he met Holly as a teenager.
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