Paul and John Took Over His Beat (1986)

 

Paul and John Took Over His Beat

By Billy Sloan

Daily Record

September 23, 1986

    Buddy Holly never knew what effect his appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium had on two young lads from Liverpool. The American singer's performance on the famous TV variety show in 1958 left teenage school pals John Lennon and Paul McCartney absolutely mesmerized, and this was the spur which made Lennon and McCartney form the Beatles and change the course of popular music.

     The memory is revealed by superstar McCartney on a new video called "The Real Buddy Holly Story," released this month to mark the 50th anniversary of the singer's birth in Lubbock, Texas, on September 7, 1936.  The former Beatle owns the rights to Holly's catalog of songs. Over the past five years, he has worked tirelessly to promote the speckled star who died tragically in a plane crash in 1959 at age 22. 

    McCartney insisted on narrating Holly's story personally because he's such a fan, and the video reveals some amazing recollections of those early Beatles days. Paul said, "I remember seeing Buddy on the Palladium Show. That was a big occasion for us. We watched his fingers to see how he played the chords and the solos.

     "The very first songs John and I wrote were inspired by him. We used to bunk off school to do it. We got 'Love Me Do ' out of that.

     "There were these guys like Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, really good-looking fellows. But then Buddy Holly came along, and he wore glasses, and John, who normally wore specs but took them off on stage, started wearing them again, and suddenly he could see the world."

     Inspired by the Crickets, John and Paul copied the name by originally calling themselves the Beetles. They later changed the second E to an A to make it sound more trendy. 

    Holly was born Charles Harden Holly, and began singing and playing as a teenager at local high school hops. His first record was a song called "Love Me," which was released in 1956, and the singer, a prolific songwriter, soon notched up a string of hits, including such classics as "Peggy Sue," "Oh Boy," "That'll Be the Day," "Rave On," and "Heartbeat."

     In fact, the Beatles' first-ever recording in a tiny Liverpool studio was a rough-and-ready version of "That'll Be the Day." Recently, more than a quarter of a century later, Paul McCartney was named an honorary citizen of Holly's hometown.