The Buddy Holly Story

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I watched this movie called The Buddy Holly Story yesterday in lecture. To let the readers know what it is all about, I'll let wikipedia tell the story for you:

The film focuses on Buddy Holly's beginnings as a teenager in Lubbock, Texas and his emergence into the world of rock and roll with his fictional good friends and Crickets bandmates, drummer Jesse Charles (Don Stroud) and bass player Ray Bob Simmons (Charles Martin Smith). Their first break comes when they are brought to Nashville, Tennessee to record, but Buddy soon clashes with the producers' rigid ideas of how the music should sound and they walk out. Eventually, he finds another producer, Ross Turner (Conrad Janis), who very reluctantly allows Buddy to make music the way he wants. While there, he meets future wife Maria Elena Santiago (Maria Richwine).

A humorous episode results from a misunderstanding in one of their early bookings. Sol Glitter (Dick O'Neill) signs them up sight-unseen for the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, thinking (from their music) that they're an African-American band. When three white Southerners show up, he is stunned, but unwilling to pay them for doing nothing, he nervously lets them perform and prays fervently that the all-black audience doesn't riot. After an uncomfortable start, the Crickets are a tremendous hit. This was the first appearance of a white group in that venue.

Much of the movie deals with his coming to terms with his overnight celebrity status and dealing with the addiction of fame. A sub-plot focuses on his budding romance with his girlfriend and fiancee Maria Elena. The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens also appear as friends of his, also with problems with show business.

On February 3, 1959, preparing for a concert at Clearlake, Holly decides to charter a private plane to fly to New York City for their next concert, while the Bopper and Valens (who wins a coin toss) agree to come with him. After playing his final song "Rave On", Holly bids the town farewell with "Thank you Clearlake! We love you. C'mon....we'll see you next year," unaware that, for him, next year will never come. A caption at the end of the film tells what happened to Holly, Valens, and the Bopper on The Day the Music Died and dedicates it to his family and friends.


I was actually wondering what's the big deal about this show (particularly after Ian Gordon played the rock n'roll). Then just immediately after the story unfolds, I started to like the movie. The music was retro enough. The type of music is my fav music for parties. PnW musics are great, but never near the level of retro (if only people write retro praise).

Perhaps the most detestable moment of the movie is the church scene (ironically) after Holly's first performance in the screen. The preacher criticised rock n'roll music performed by Buddy Holly as unAmerican, unChristian whatever... and actually commended that hymns are good music!!! I dun have a personal bias against hymns, I think they are nice, but what @#$% right does that preacher have to criticise musics he cannot appreciate??? That imagery is precisely why people have a stereotype of church life, an imagery of the church as repressive and whatever you have. If only I can be there and give that stupid preacher a tight slap in the face and ask him to wake up. He will probably faint if he hears the PnW today. LOL

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