Buddy Holly on Ed Sullivan
Buddy Holly needs no introduction. He revolutionised popular music in the
shadow of the much more popular and showmanlike Elvis Presley, to this
day some view Holly as being nothing more than a squeaky voiced wanna-
be who never had what it took to steal the limelight and momentum off
off Elvis by citing that he had many singles which flopped in compari-
son to the few that stormed to the top of the charts. This may be true,
one of Buddy`s greatest songs ever, `It`s So Easy`, with the accompany-
ing classic B-side `Lonesome Tears`, is one of the most famous flops in
the history of rock`n`roll. And there are at least half a dozen more in
the same sort of category - great rock`n`roll which for whatever reason
went absolutely nowhere in Holly`s artistically best but commercially
worst year of 1958. He certainly had a better year commercially speak-
ing in 1957, with the mega-hits `That`ll Be The Day` and `Peggy Sue`.
Ironically Ed Sullivan, who was the man who on one hand gave Buddy a
go and allowed him to appear on his show twice and on the other hand
had his studio lacky pull the microphone from Holly`s amp while per-
forming `Oh Boy`, was one of many ultra-conservatives in america who
pulled the rug from underneath the populist culture of rock`n`roll in
general because of their over-reactionist personal dogmas about rock`-
n`roll being `the devils music`. Listening to Holly`s rollicking but in-
nocent rock`n`roll anthems, it is hard to comprehend now how Sullivan
and a swag of other bible bashers ever got the idea that Holly or El-
vis were immoral and evil role models for the millions of people who
looked up to them. Buddy Holly was simply the best ever guitarist as
far as downward strums go, he extracted an extraordinarily heavy and
dense sound out of his Fender Stratocaster because he didn`t use any
picks and he just played so hard and fast downwards and not upwards,
which was so much unlike Chuck Berry. Lyrically Holly was innocent
as could be, but he was damn heavy for his time, maybe the volume
was what got under the nose of Ed Sullivan and all the other rock
haters of 50`s america. If Elvis hadn`t swung his hips and thrown
in some pelvic thrusts on stage, then he wouldn`t have been near-
ly as controversial. This is classic footage of the famous and in-
famous performance of `Oh Boy` on the Ed Sullivan Show. Look
closely and you`ll work out the moment when Buddy had his amp
pulled out, there is a brief look of bewilderment on his face and
the he tears into the rest of the song with even greater ferocity.
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