Rockabilly Meets Punk
Written: Nov 26 '00 (Updated Nov 28 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great tribute album; melds rock 'n' roll, rockabilly and punk -- and makes it work.
Cons: One non-Holly song could have been left out.
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| Steve_NC's Full Review: Everyday Is a Holly Day |
There have been three great periods in rock music, in my opinion: 1955-1959, 1964-1969, and the 1980s. In the first, rock 'n' roll exploded onto the scene and upset the pop music applecart. In the second, inaugurated by the British Invasion, rock both reflected and helped drive the era's cultural changes. In the third, rock artists melded the creativity and experimentation that marked the Sixties with the (dare I say it?) fun that characterized the Fifties, musically speaking.
I would go so far as to say that rock from the 1980s has more in common with rock 'n' roll from the 1950s than with anything else before or since. The 1980s mostly added studio sophistication and MTV to a music that seemed fresh and edgy again following the uninspired and uninspiring decade of disco and "classic" rock.
Fittingly, the best tribute album to 1950s rock 'n' roll great Buddy Holly was made in the 1980s. Everyday Is A Holly Day was released in 1989 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Holly's death. The artists who contributed to it capture the essence of Holly's musical appeal while adding to it the wonderful punk sensibility of the Eighties.
Buddy Holly (born Charles Hardin Holley) was one of the top four or five rock 'n' rollers of the Fifties. In this pantheon I include Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis (arguably), and Holly. Holly came from Lubbock, Texas, where from an early age he sang and played first country music, then "western bop," a style that he and a friend developed. He began making records in 1956, and with his group, the Crickets -- and later, as a solo artist -- scored a string of hits starting in mid-1957. On Feb. 3, 1959, while on tour, he died at age 22 in a plane crash near Mason City, Iowa. This was "the day the music died," to quote the Don McLean song, "American Pie."
Holly's singing and playing style was distinctive. Cock your head one way and it sounds like straight-out rock 'n' roll; cock* it the other way and it is unadulturated rockabilly, sounding more like the Everly Brothers or Rick Nelson than Little Richard or Chuck Berry. Holly's voice, and in particular his phrasing, is the bridge. By and large not a shouter, he hiccuped his way through his most famous songs, and this trademark vocal oddity provides the nervous edge that lifts his work out of the realm of "mere" rockabilly.
Then there were the songs themselves. In his too-short career, Holly studio-recorded some 50 tunes, many written by himself, and almost all of them built around a simple but powerful hook: "Maybe Baby," "That'll Be the Day" (inspired by a phrase repeated over and over by John Wayne in the movie, The Searchers), "Changing All Those Changes," "Not Fade Away," "Rave On," etc. Once heard, a Holly song can go on and on in your head for days.
Buddy Holly's songs have been covered by many artists over the years. No one has done it better than the artists on this CD.
Everday Is A Holly Day was conceived by New Rose Records producer Patrick Mathe, who contacted artists around the world who he thought could do the best by Holly's music. In my opinion, they delivered even more than could reasonably have been expected. The punk/alt-country rockers assembled here, recording in widely scattered locations, play the songs as you might expect Holly himself to do, had he been transported to the 1980s. There's a bit more noise, some added screeches and guitar feedback, and a faster pace on a couple of the songs -- basically just punked-up Holly. All I can say is, it works.
The selection of songs is excellent. Mathe says he conferred with the artists about which ones to do: "Originally, we expected to record 12 or 13 songs but ended up narrowing it down to 17." Those 17 include Holly's biggest hits as well as some lesser known ones, including a couple that first surfaced years after Holly's death.
Tracks are:
1. Hey Buddy performed by Imitation Life. Not a Holly song, but a tribute to him (written especially for this CD?). Significantly, while it is a solid rocker, it is the least enjoyable song on the album.
2. Words of Love performed by Shoes.
3. Rave On performed by Red River. One interesting part is a guitar break that sounds like a motor revving up.
4. Changing All those Changes performed by LMNOP (which turns out to be a one-man band, according to the liner notes). Holly's original was one of the first songs he recorded, but it wasn't released until 1983. I consider it to be one of his top half-dozen.
5. Love's Made A Fool of You performed by Classic Ruins.
6. Take Your Time performed by Ted and the Tall Tops. In this version, the lead singer's voice is startlingly deep (unlike Holly's), and even comes off sounding like Elvis.
7. Baby, Won't You Come Out Tonight performed by Willie Alexander, another Elvis sound-alike.
8. Peggy Sue Got Married performed by Paul Roland. The original version was recorded by Holly in his and his new wife's apartment in New York a few days before he left on his ill-fated tour.
9. Rockin' Around with Ollie Vee performed by The Country Rockers. (Minor quibble: I think the title is supposed to be "Rock Around with Ollie Vee.")
10. Not Fade Away performed by Lolitas, the only all-female group on the CD. Francoise Cactus, Coco, and Olga (yep, those are their names), sing in a kind of monotone. I like it, though.
11. Everday performed by Elliott Murphy. My favorite Holly song, and also my favorite track on this CD. Where the original used an instrument called a celeste to give the song an airy feel, this version uses chimes -- only in an aggressively pounding way. It turns out to be a great effect.
12. Peggy Sue performed by Tav Falco's Panther Burns. The singer even does a good job on the hiccupping parts.
13. Heartbeat performed by Speedy Sparks. Of all the songs on the CD, this one sounds most like the Holly original.
14. Down the Line performed by the Slickee Boys. Not one of my favorite Holly songs, and not one of my favorites here, either. A fine performance nevertheless.
15. It's So Easy performed by Chris Spedding. Most interesting vocals of all the tracks, with a male lead and female backing singers who come in with the "It's so easy, it's so easy, it's so easy" line. Great guitar picking, too.
16. Oh Boy" performed by OFB. A shouter.
17. It Doesn't Matter Anymore performed by Chris Bailey. This one is pounded out slowly -- slower than the original, I think. The song was written by Paul Anka.
* I'll be curious to see if the dumb-as-bricks Epinions software tries to edit out this word, as it did with another "offensive" word I used in a previous opinion (see "My Infallible System").
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Steve_NC
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Member: Steve Smith
Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 28 members
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