Album Review: Buddy Holly's "Chirping" Crickets

As I've had some time to settle down the last week and a half, I've listened to more LPs in contention for my upcoming "Awesome Albums" show. Some had great harmonies, like 1960's "It's Everly Time" or 1970s's "Close to You". Willie Nelson's 1978 album of pop standards, "Stardust", truly makes you feel at ease. You can tell Willie was stoned the whole time he was recording it. And The Temptations' "Cloud Nine" had some powerful and timely psychedelic soul music in 1969. But, for the album that has impressed me the most as of late... you'd have to go back to 1957, when the LP format was in its infancy. You'd have to go to Buddy Holly, a true rock 'n roll legend. Because in my opinion, The "Chirping" Crickets deserves its status as one of the first truly great albums. So let's talk about it.

Already starts with an awesome album cover.

The album opens with arguably its strongest track, "Oh Boy!". Buddy grabs you right away with "All of my love, all of my kissing, you don't know what you've been missing!". His vocals are pure balls for the entire two minutes. The charisma he has is reminiscent of The Beatles, and I don't say that lightly. But, The Beatles were truly influenced by The Crickets. In fact, every band that came after The Crickets was influenced by the two guitars, one bass, and one drummer format. "Oh Boy!" and the following track "Not Fade Away" feature the Crickets backing Buddy up with some vocal harmonies. On "Not Fade Away", we hear them chirp in with "bop, bop, bop, bop". It's ridiculously simple, yet very effective and catchy.

With his fabulous curls, this is probably Buddy's most famous picture.

Then we get into the Buddy tracks I hadn't heard of before, and I was honestly surprised by the lack of filler. The tracks that come after the famous ones... they're still good! "You've Got Love" again shows the swag that Buddy had as a lead singer, for lack of a better word. He sings the line, "You've got me in a spin, I like the spin I'm in". And he delivers it with a cheekiness that honestly reminds me of Bon Scott. The guitar sound on the song, again, is reminiscent of those early British invasion bands. Then we get to another earworm song in "Maybe Baby". This one is a little more famous because it was in "The Buddy Holly Story". In any case, the album opens up with four short but very strong songs.

Buddy looks like a certain someone in this picture.

Then we have a weaker track in "It's Too Late". It's a slower ballad type that uses the doo wop progression, but this wasn't Buddy's wheelhouse. He mentions in the song how hurt he is by his woman, but how "it's a weak man that cries". Needless to say, this 50s view of masculinity hasn't aged well in my opinion. Our first filler song, but it's not terrible. Buddy gets back to his wheelhouse with track #6 in "Tell Me How". The whole pleading and begging with a woman reminds me of Beatles' songs like "Ask Me Why" or "Tell Me Why". It's a strong track for the Crickets' backing band, as Jerry Allison has a neat drum break in the middle of the song. By the way, Allison is the only surviving original Cricket, and is now 82 years old.

Here is Jerry Allison, The Crickets' drummer.

Then we flip the album over to side two, and it's another Buddy classic in "That'll Be The Day". There's actually two versions of this record that get played a lot. The first comes from Buddy's time at Decca, where he recorded a high-pitched version of the song, as he truly pushed his upper register. That was the first version of the song I heard, until I listened to Andrew Hickey's podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs". He played me the other version of "That'll Be The Day", wherein Buddy's voice is much lower. I didn't like it as much at first, but now I recognize that it sounds better without him straining his voice. In any case, both versions of the song are great, as "That'll Be The Day" is a true rock 'n roll classic. I mean, it has to be when it's the very first song The Beatles recorded! Next up is "I'm Looking For Someone To Love", an upbeat little ditty, but nothing too memorable there.

The Crickets look particularly dapper here.

Okay, so I stand by upbeat songs being more Buddy's strength. But that being said, "An Empty Cup (And A Broken Date)" is a pretty memorable track. The name alone captures your attention. Buddy talks of having his heart broke at a drive-in, and all he has to show for it is an empty coke bottle. "Just like this coke, my love is gone", he says. And The Crickets chirp in, following most lines in the song with perfect call and response precision. And they sound exactly like you'd imagine the backing singers in a sad 50s song to sound like. Next up is "Send Me Some Lovin", another slowish song with some doo wop vibes. It's a song that builds up in intensity, as Buddy really hammers home the feel in "Send me your kisses, I can feel their touch". Consequently, John Lennon did the exact same thing when he covered the song for his 1975 Rock 'N Roll album.

Buddy has underrated songs as well as famous hits on this album.

"Last Night" is yet another slow jam, as this album tended to follow the traditional format of more slow songs being on the flip side. There was 3 slow songs on side 2, compared to just 1 on side 1. In any case, "Last Night" is just okay. But the finale, "Rock Me My Baby", is quite exciting. It's a short and rollicking song that features such genius lyrics as "rock-a-like-a-hickory-dickory-dock, rock-a-bye my baby". And if you think me calling that "genius" is tongue-in-cheek, just listen to the song and tell me you don't enjoy it. You can't. So concludes the fantastic debut album from Buddy Holly, and the only album ever credited to just "The Crickets" during Buddy's lifetime.

It wasn't just Buddy... the Crickets were quite the influential band.

As you know, Buddy Holly died tragically young. He was 22 years old, 2 years older than me, just married, and had his whole life ahead of him. He could easily still be alive today, but died one fateful day in 1959. Rock 'n roll music is full of tragic tales, but maybe none as tragic as Holly's. Imagine what he could've contributed as rock 'n roll shifted to rock music. And yet, despite his short life, he still contributed so much. He recorded around 90 songs. His backing band, The Crickets, went on to influence all the rock artists that came after them. While Buddy is obviously the star of the show, I shouldn't ignore bassist Joe B. Maudin, rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan, and the aforementioned drummer Jerry Allison. Together, they created something special in 1957. They created what will probably be the earliest album I play on "Graeme's Awesome Albums".