![]() ![]() Only when we get to his first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights”/”Love Me” do we hear his voice clearly and distinctly, and though it would get better over time and the “hiccup” in his style more prominent, that inimitable and engaging sweetness is there at the core. Our journey opens with three relative rarities that were originally and posthumously released by Coral Records in the 1960’s: “Down the Line,” “Soft Place in My Heart” and “Holly Hop.” The tracks establish Buddy’s roots in country and rockabilly as well as his early affinity with harmony on “Soft Place In My Heart.” They’re a hoot to listen to, for though they are very primitive recordings, the sincerity and energy that defined his style are present for all to hear. to say nothing of the fact that sometimes the record companies released multiple singles in the same month. The Buddy Holly Collection does a decent job of lining up the tracks in the general order of recording, not an easy feat due to the multiple and overlapping contracts Buddy (and The Crickets, separately) had with Decca, Coral and/or Brunswick. I can certainly do groove-emphasis music, but I have a much harder time with lyrical emphasis when the singers can’t fucking sing. Buddy Holly was wonderful at melody, more than competent with groove, lyrically adequate. Of course I think that, but the real reason has to do with my love of melody and people who can sing melodically. The reason why you see more classic reviews of British artists than American artists on this site is not because I think my homeland is a gun-crazed, homophobic, racist and paranoid place full of greedy and selfish people. American music emphasized groove and lyrics, and often featured singers with distinctly anti-melodic voices: Dylan, Tom Waits, Springsteen and a horde of others (eventually the lack of interest in melody would encourage the development of the noteless, tuneless genres of rap and hip-hop). Most of the great melodic rock artists since the 60’s have come from the Mother Country. ![]() After Roy Orbison’s peak in the early 60’s and Brian Wilson’s collapse, the melodic emphasis became the least important of the three core components in American rock music. Like Orbison, though, The Beach Boys are hard to emulate: you need a bunch of guys who can sing well together, and that’s not as easy as it sounds.įrom my perspective, the reason why Buddy Holly’s death was so tragic was that American rock music lost a major champion of melody. Brian Wilson certainly had an abundance of melodic talent, but it was The Beach Boys’ glorious displays of harmony that defined their sound and proved to be the primary source of their influence. Buddy Holly’s music was more accessible: a kid could listen to Buddy Holly and think, “Maybe I could do that.” The sheer joy Buddy brought to his music only added more encouragement. Orbison was a problematic melodist because his three-plus-octave range combined with his uniquely intuitive songwriting style made it impossible for less gifted vocalists and songwriters to go where only Roy could go. The melodic emphasis in early American rock music manifested itself primarily in three artists: Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Brian Wilson. Although Chuck Berry wrote some pretty good lyrics, the words really wouldn’t matter until Bob Dylan came along. In that light, and considering for the moment only the American progenitors of rock, you could say that both Chuck Berry and Little Richard emphasized the groove. Production and arrangement are also secondary considerations. While harmony certainly matters (as The Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys and The Beatles certainly proved), harmony is dependent on melody. ![]() At the most basic level, any rock song has three basic components: the melody, the groove and the lyrics. While there are some artists capable at all three, the more common tendency is for an artist to be really strong in one area and at least adequate in the other two. To understand why the loss of Buddy Holly truly qualifies as tragic, you have to consider his contributions in the larger historical context. It’s always sad when someone dies before they’ve had a chance to experience life in all its stages, but the truth is that many of the fallen heroes who have become the subject of veneration had pretty much exhausted their musical possibilities before they died. I hate to be a cold bitch about it (not really), but only a very few of those deaths truly qualify as tragic from a musical perspective. There have been many rock heroes who have died young.
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