That'll Be The Day (both versions) & Lookin' For Someone To Love Buddy Holly & the Crickets

[kerrykokotis]

Even if you dont know of Buddy Holly watch these clips and you will get to know what a great that he was, even the strongest will feel sad watching how 3 guys died so young. RIP

[Shoknifeman]

that should say : The hit version was put onto the "B" side of LFSTL; as a throwaway (Seeing as it had already bombed) so, figuring it didn't really matter (B sides were almost never played at the time); Buddy did the song the way he had written it in the first place, and TBTD went on to become Buddy's only #1 hit.

[05khanta]

smooth

[hopop313]

the first version wasn't heaps bad but clearly the official version is waaay better, its in a key that suits his voice, its faster, the recording is clearer, it has a decent intro riff, and it doesn't have that god-awful echo thing going on. I dunno what half those recording studio fellas were thinking back in the 50's. You often get these great songs by greats artists from back then the but mixing was usually terrible, by the early 60's there was a marked improvement with recording, i notice.

[Shoknifeman]

@hopop313 The producers at the Decca studios in Nashville were used to recording country stars and they just didn't "get" Rock 'n' Roll, so, they asked Buddy to countrify TBTD and made him sing in an unaturally high key[for Buddy] (Haznk Williams and yodelling were the trend at the time); the result was several songs that Decca put on the shelf, releasing them only after Buddy died. The hit version the "B" side of "Looking for someone to Love"; done the way Buddy wrote it , and became a #1 hit!

[madagascarjoan]

great! thanks.

[EdPernod]

Thanks for posting , he was really too high pitch ( for buddy)at nashville , if was the fashion of the '50's to have the highest picth possible , ( i just remember the movie la bamba) I'm a big buddy holly fan and I didn't had that one yet I tought that I have them all

[imajeed2]

you can hear that he is strugglin in that key! I much prefer the original key!! Great post tho!! Nice hear a different version of a great song!!

[Kazak999]

I think i like this version better....

[Tjorvz1]

Never heard the first version before. Thanks for posting :)

[buddyhoot]

Very nice to hear! Thats the recording session where they did "Blue days, black nights" I believe! I love hearing Buddy play his leads, it's such a clean sound and you really appreciate the quality of the musicianship involved! Not many people these days do that anymore, it's how many bells and whistles can you put on my sound... By the way, todays date is 2/3/2010, rest in peace Buddy, Richie and JP!!!

[PackedFunk]

very cool. i never heard this before.

[PackedFunk]

rip buddy holly

[BettyVanSneeIV]

Thanks.

[seventiesclassic]

Got the 1st version on an LP called That'll Be The Day..on the Ace Of Hearts label.

[luap123311]

Like that version just as well --- but the second version has a better tempo. No matter what -- he was a great talent!

[2alleykat]

This is a keeper.rock! ,rock on!

[MegaZozo12345]

he has such a wonderful voice he shouldn't have died



[nkerio]

He had great vocal range even though his voice was breaking up in the first version. That strain at the high notes can still be considered part of good Rock & Roll similarly to the Beatles version of "Twist & Shout" where John tears it up.

[Shoknifeman]

@nkerio Basically, the Decca version was done in Nashvile where they MADE Buddy sing in an unatural high pitched voice to appeal to their country music tastes...When Buddy remade the song at the Norvajack studios in Clovis, he did it his OWN way

[Glinkaism1]

@Shoknifeman Right on! The (latest) February 2011 MIX Magazine has a story of page 28 on "That'll Be The Day." There are photos the classic RCA 77 and 44 mics as well as the Ampex 350 recorder used in Norman Petty's Clovis NM studio. The article says that Petty brought demos to Murray Deutch who worked for Southern Music. In turn Deutch went to Bob Thiele at Brunswick, a subsidiary of Decca. It's a quite detailed story. Bob Thiele wrote a book about his career that I've read & another source.

[karlmahlmann]

Buddy's recorded conversation with the Decca exec is on YT somewhere. In that conversation he mentions that the Decca session was deemed a bad take. You can clearly hear that it's in the wrong key for his voice and that he is straining badly. He must have had a good producer for the hit version, which sounds like someone knew what they were doing.

[redfenderguy]

@karlmahlmann couldnt agree more mate yes

[billny59]

great story, i guess Decca got theirs when they passed on signing the Beatles!

[redfenderguy]

@billny59 true mate  yes

[ZeskoWhirligan]

Good story that goes with this. Buddy cut several songs for Decca, but Decca chose not to release. They screwed Buddy, basically, by signing him to a 5 year contract, then taking ownership of "That'll Be the Day".... So Buddy couldn't record it on any other label, right. Then Decca threw it in a vault, unreleased. Buddy was pissed.

[ZeskoWhirligan]

Unbeknownst to Decca, Buddy re-recorded "That'll Be the Day" at a little studio in New Mexico. The HIT version. But Buddy still couldn't release it because of his contract with Decca. They would have sued him to DEATH. So, Buddy pulled a FAST ONE on Decca Records. He took his hit version to Brunswick Records (a subsidiary of Decca) and Brunswick went ahead and RELEASED the song. The HIT version. Yeah, Decca records was PISSED OFF, but WHO were they gonna sue? Themselves?? LOLOLOL

[redfenderguy]

@ZeskoWhirligan  hahaha well said mate

[47Napper]

@ZeskoWhirligan Thanks, I didn't know anything about Buddy and the Brunswick and Decca Labels; I started collecting Hollies records while he was alive and they were all on the Coral label (now all sadly lost due to thieving bastards) and I'm always playing Buddy's songs today with just the same enthusiasm.

[bkgartist]

I wonder what would have happened if he lived to team up with stevie ray vaughn? 2 Texas legends!!

[TheBobFiles]

BUDDY IS DA BEST! his singing is a little too high on the 1st version though. look 4 the early version of "maybe baby"

[NoTimeLikethePast]

"girls call the shots... amen to that"

[Disturbed4Eva10]

I must say, I love the guitar solo a lot on the original version.

[Chudyk1986]

The solo is exactly like the one in his song 'Ting - a - ling'

[Warthog5050]

Back in the 1980's a company named "Asten" released the alternative version of "That Will Be The Day" on a cassette tape titled "Buddy Holly 23 All Time Greatest Hits" .

[MaximRecoil]

@Warthog5050

Wow, there aren't many people who remember that tape. It was "Astan 20125" from 1984 and it was released on both cassette tape and vinyl (The tape was black).

I remember it well because my friend Corey had it when we were kids in the '80s and he played the hell out of it until it was completely worn out. Then we could never find another copy of it anywhere; which sucked, because we loved the Decca version of TBTD, and other Buddy Holly tapes didn't have it...

(continued below)

[MaximRecoil]

The local "oldies" radio station didn't have it either, so it would be another 20 years or so until I could hear it again (thanks to the internet).

Unfortunately, Astan 20125 was never released on CD, but I did find a CD which has the Decca version of TBTD ("The Great Buddy Holly" MCAD-31037), and it is cheap, so I bought it.

(continued below)

[MaximRecoil]

I already had all the rest of the songs that were on Astan 20125, spread across various other Buddy Holly CDs. Plus I found a scan of the Astan 20125 tape case showing the song list/order. I thought it would be nice to hear Astan 20125 again, i.e., hearing all 23 songs in the order that I remember hearing them as a kid, and with CD sound quality. So I ripped all the songs I needed from my various CDs to lossless WAV files, and recreated Astan 20125 as a CD (and gave Corey a copy as well).

[Warthog5050]

I still have the tape and it's in good condition . One thing that's puzzled me about that tape is that some songs have kind of a "bright" sound to them like "Dolby NR" was used while other songs on the tape sound normal .

[MaximRecoil]

Is your tape the old black version? The tape was reissued sometime in the late 90s, because I bought a new copy of it off the counter at a convenience store in 99 or 00 (I was shocked to see it there; I was just in there to buy a soda).

The tape was clear with cheap stick on labels and bad printing for the text of the song titles. I still have it, only played a few times, but I can't find the case to it; which sucks because I'd like to get a 1200 DPI scan of it to make a CD cover with.

[Warthog5050]

It's the "black" version , but the silver colored print on it is kind of worn . Also I had to open up the cassette and tape it back to together once when the tape came loose from one of the wheels inside .

[zbestwun2001]

Great find Jimmy... keep the music alive

Steve

Magnolia Gold Records

Home of the Legendary Delaney Bramlett

[Papatorrejano]

Great post Conejo! Thanks for sharing.

[123456789tall]

i love this song is so good for my school work thanksxxx