Customer Reviews

OH BOY! The Life and Music of Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer Buddy Holly

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a big Buddy Holly fan and a new Kindle owner. So I was excited about getting to read this book on my Kindle. It only took me about three pages to realize that this book is pretty cheesy. The book is very poorly written and frankly, I'm surprised anyone would publish it. I've seen articles in high school newspapers that were better written.

It's clear that the author is a Buddy Holly fan, but she could have been somewhat more neutral and analytical. She's a cheerleader for Norman Petty and Holly's wife, Maria Elena Holly.

This book really appears to be just re-written newspaper articles and other information readers can easily find on the Internet - kinda like a junior high student's report on Rome or something that is really a re-written Wikipedia article. There doesn't seem to be much original work here.

I would only give it one star, but even a bad book about Buddy Holly deserves two stars.

I purchased this book after hearing an interview with Ms. Rabin on Len Edgerly's Kindle Chronicles podcast. I've always had a mild interest in Buddy Holly and it had been a while since I'd read anything about him.

Ms. Rabin does a good job of documenting Buddy's background and career and I found this to be an enjoyable read. The book seems to present a fair picture of Buddy's life (maybe a little too fair in dealing with his ex-manager Norman Petty) and contains many quotes about Buddy's influence on music from people who later became famous.

This is a relatively short book but, in my opinion, definitely worth a read.

Staton Rabin, an widely published author of books for children and teenagers, wasn't planning to write a book about Buddy Holly. A series of coincidences convinced her to undertake the project, and thank goodness she answered the call. Otherwise, a new generation of young music lovers might well think that Elvis invented rock 'n' roll, with maybe a little help from the Beatles. In fact, this "boy next door" from Lubbock, Texas, became one of the earliest and most original voices of rock 'n' roll, inspiring everyone from the Beatles to Bob Dylan to Don MacLean, who immortalized the date of Holly's untimely death -- February 3, 1959 -- as "the day the music died." This Kindle edition arrives in time for the 50th anniversary of that sad day, but the book itself is full of joy and savvy appreciation of Buddy Holly's place in the history of American music.

I will confess to being several decades older than the target age group for this book, but I loved the story and the way Rabin tells it. She is a fine writer, and her connection with her subject is heartfelt. "Elvis may have been 'the King,'" she writes in the Introduction, "but it was Buddy Holly who drew up the blueprints to build the palace of rock 'n' roll."

I bought a Buddy Holly album -- Essential Masters (digital) -- on Amazon and loaded the mp3 files onto my Kindle. This made for a delightful reintroduction to his music and his story. With the help of this inspiring book, Buddy Holly is less at risk of becoming the most famous rock star that young people have never heard of.