Drawing on interviews with almost everyone who ever associated with Holly, including his widow, a biography creates a vivid picture of a young man who took the American music scene by storm and then died suddenly in a tragic plane crash. 25,000 first printing.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Though only 22 years old when he died, Buddy Holly has become a legend in rock-and-roll history. In Rave On, writer Philip Norman proposes that Holly was even more influential in the genre's development than previously credited. Though popular in the United States, his subtle style and earnest charm were overshadowed by the more flamboyant Elvis Presley. Holly's aura of mystery was much more suited to England, which was still recovering from post-war depression, and his reception there was unprecedented. His music played a major role in igniting English youth, and his low-key approach to energized rhythms and rebellion influenced many groups--including the Beatles--to play rock-and-roll.
From Publishers Weekly
In the annals of rock and roll, singer and songwriter Buddy Holly remains an elusive legend. He died in a plane crash in 1959, at the age of 22, becoming one of the first rock stars to perish in a tragic, now romanticized, end. Though Holly inspired a Hollywood biopic in the late 1970s, in the prologue to this biography British writer Norman (Shout!) laments the general lack of knowledge about this influential Texas-born musician. Norman's attempt at setting the Holly story straight is a well-researched volume in which Holly comes across as a talented, fun-loving guy who carried the torch for a high-school sweetheart with strong religious convictions; who blindly signed over much of his future income to Norman Perry, his smarmy producer and manager; and who endured grueling concert tours of the U.S. and Britain. The text doubles as a solid history of the early days of rock, and it particularly sparkles when Norman recounts, from personal experience, the British perspective on American music of the 1950s. Despite the author's skill, however, Holly appears to have been too wholesome a character, with too attenuated a life, to keep the text consistently absorbing. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buddy Gets His Due,
By
This review is from: Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly (Hardcover)
I needed to read this book because all I knew about Buddy Holly, other than a dozen or so evergreen songs, was that movie, "The Buddy Holly Story," which is hardly accurate. Philip Norman gives you a much better sense of what Buddy's brief moment in the spotlight was all about.It was brief, just over a year and a half from the time he and his band, the Crickets, hit the U.S. charts with "That'll Be The Day" in the summer of 1957 to the fateful flight from Mason City, Iowa on February 3, 1959. It's hard to imagine making as much of the time as Buddy Holly did of his, starting a career, a business partnership, and a family, not to mention writing music that revolutionized rock n' roll. Norman gives you a good sense of how Holly did this, in a book that is a clear work of love, not ignoring negative elements of the story but striving to put them in less lurid context. One weakness of the book is that this sometimes gets in the way (Holly's alleged gambling problems, dwelt on in other books, is only mentioned once in passing, while a tale backup Cricket guitarist Niki Sullivan offers up about Holly getting a girl pregnant is thrown up only to be knocked down in backhanded fashion.) But the overwhelming sense one gets from reading "Rave On" is Norman's contention that Buddy had everything going for him except luck. I liked especially the English context of this book. Norman, a British author, pays close attention to Holly and the Crickets' impact on the British music scene, where he was a bigger sensation than his native land. Occasionally, as when the Crickets visit the U.K. and Norman itemizes hotel expenses and suchlike, it gets a bit precious, but Holly, the first rocker to write his own songs and perform them in a band context, obviously was laying some groundwork here that the British would emulate with great success in the coming decade. Norman also takes on Norman Petty, producer and manager of the Crickets who was either duplicitous by design or by accident. "To some, he was the person who made it possible for Buddy Holly to come alive; others feel he could hardly be more to blame for Buddy's death if he'd gone out into the Iowa snows with a machine gun and pointed it straight into the sky." Given Buddy's reason for joining the 1959 "Winter Dance Party" tour had to do with Petty's reluctance to part with money Holly earned under Petty's wing that Holly needed for himself and his pregnant wife, you can understand the bitterness. Norman was able to get a look at Petty's files, tape transcripts, and the like, which cast some new light on the fellow Norman dubs "Clovis Man," if not enough to figure out exactly who he was or what he was about. Petty makes an interesting character; Norman got more use out of Brian Epstein in his Beatles book, "Shout," but when the Holly story finds itself in the strange Clovis, New Mexico studio space where Petty, his wife, and their butch female companion lived, the story picks up a bit. Ultimately, the focus stays with Buddy, though, where it belongs. Norman explains just what it was about his music that made it so innovative, both uniquely of its time and timeless. It's amazing that he not only established a new sound but moved so far beyond it in such a short time. Maybe not so amazingly, his songs were often ignored in the United States (just 3 Top 10 hits, by himself or with the Crickets) while embraced with greater fervor overseas (his last single release, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," was a #1 hit in England, but peaked in the U.S. at, natch, #13.) The last images of the book are the most arresting. Norman gets a rare peak at the overnight bag Holly carried with him on his fatal flight, still encrusted with dirt from that frozen farmland where his single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza slammed down, still containing a tube of toothpaste, a lint brush, and a comb still entwined with a few hairs that never turned gray. This book didn't really breathe Buddy; it skims over a good deal and Norman fails to corroborate stories he offers up from single sources. But it's a nice book that captures who this fellow named Buddy Holly was, and why he left such a deep imprint on culture, both directly and through his many followers.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Tragedies Behind the Truth About Buddy Holly,
By A Customer
This review is from: Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly (Hardcover)
Norman's biography strips away many of the hitherto half-truths and speculations about the young rock and roll pioneer, whose death in a plane crash is an occurrence that most everyone in the Western world knows about, since it has mythologized Holly as rock and roll's first martyr. What not many people know is the difficult and at times troubled existence that Holly led during his brief two years in the spotlight. Norman's book is best when he details the insidious influence of Holly's eccentric producer and "manager," Norman Petty, who orchestrated a devious plan to not only deprive Holly of ever collecting his due monies, but to pit Holly's two bandmates against him during the ugly legal wrangling, eventually tying Holly's hands and leaving him no choice but to tackle a grueling winter tour to raise cash for himself and his expectant wife. While Norman's writing is sometimes weighed down with starstruck adulation, no other Holly biographer has written such a gripping and chilling account of Holly's final days. Many questions about the plane crash remain unanswered, as they probably will always be, but Norman's practical approach to the facts puts things into perspective without embracing some of the more outlandish hypotheses that have surfaced in recent years (such as Holly shooting the pilot in mid-flight). Norman acknowledges but does not pursue such tabloidish details, and though he comes across as a staunch Holly admirer, he presents his subject honestly. This book is highly recommended to anyone who wants the most truthful chronicle of Buddy Holly's ill-fated but enormously influential life.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but too much British perspective,
By
This review is from: Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly (Hardcover)
This book will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Buddy Holly, but from the perspective of Britain. Philip Norman seems astonished by things that are commonplace to Americans. It is not a big deal to drive a hundred miles, spend a couple of hours, and drive back. High school yearbooks are not a big deal. Eddie Cochran was not a big star in the USA; Dion was a big star. Little things like this can add up fast. I recommend this book, but not unreservedly.
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