Saturday, February 15, 2020

POP-A-LOOZA: Buddy Holly



Every Friday, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza runs a post from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. This week's Boppin' Pop-A-Looza is special to me: my look back at becoming a Buddy Holly fan in 1972-3, when I was in eighth grade.

This piece has been the single most-distributed work on my blog. In addition to the fact that my family likes it, it also made former Rolling Stone and CREEM writer John Mendelssohn rave on, rave on and tell me. When the ever-fab Devorah Ostrov was soliciting material for the brief 'n' bright on-line magazine REET!, this Buddy Holly story was among a handful of pieces I submitted for consideration. If memory serves, Dev initially selected my Greatest Record Ever Made! celebration of "Rain" by The Beatles as my designated REET! treat, but John flipped out over the Holly piece and ran with that instead. (My GREM! piece on "Do The Freddie" by Freddie & the Dreamers subsequently joined my Buddy Holly reminiscence at REET!, just before John decided to dim REET!'s lights and move on.)



Like the above-mentioned Beatles and Freddie & the Dreamers pieces, my Buddy Holly story is now a chapter in my proposed book, The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). When I was in discussion with Janet, a literary agent I hoped would represent me for this project, Janet told me that the Buddy Holly chapter made her cry. Janet's my agent now. If anything good happens with The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), I'm going to have to credit Buddy Holly with the assist. Every day, it's a-gettin' closer.

This piece will also make its print debut in the next (fifth) issue of Big Stir Magazine. Man, and they say The Beach Boys got around! So yeah, The Everlasting First: Buddy Holly is most definitely one of my greatest hits. Read it here.


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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 133 essays about 133 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).

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