Being the opening act for a famous artist is no small deal. It can open doors of all sorts and effectively take someone from relative obscurity to household name.
This is what happened to Buddy Holly in 1955, who had just barely graduated from high school when he chose to pursue a career in music with little idea of where it would lead him. Like many other young musicians of his era, Holly was fascinated with Elvis Presley, who was quite popular in Holly’s home state of Texas. It was Presley who helped inspire Holly to move further away from country music toward rock ‘n’ roll.
Holly worked hard enough that he landed a few dates opening for Presley in Lubbock, Texas, where Holly was born and raised. Back then he performed alongside his schoolfriend and then-bandmate Bob Montgomery as a rockabilly duo called Buddy and Bob. And as if that wasn’t impressive enough, he also landed a gig opening for Bill Haley & his Comets, who were one of the most popular rock ‘n’ roll bands at the time.
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At that show one particularly important person was in the audience that day: Eddie Crandall, the organizer of the concert and a Nashville talent scout working for Decca Records. Crandall evidently quite liked what he heard and pulled the necessary strings in order for the label to offer Holly a recording contract. By January of the following year, Holly was participating in recording sessions in Nashville.
It would take another year or two for Holly to truly find his footing in the industry and experience commercial success, but it can’t be understated how important it was for him to be discovered to begin with. Without Holly, several future pillars of rock may not have felt the call to pursue music.
No Holly, No Dylan
For example, on Jan. 31, 1959, three days before Holly died in a plane crash, he performed at the Duluth Armory in Minnesota, where another pivotal figure was watching, though his impact was still years away from happening. It was a 17-year-old Bob Dylan, who was instantly enamored.
“From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him,” Dylan would recall in 2017. “Buddy played the music that I loved, the music I grew up on—country western, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre. One brand. And Buddy wrote songs, songs that had beautiful melodies and imaginative verses. And he sang great, sang in more than a few voices. He was the archetype, everything I wasn’t and wanted to be.”
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Gallery Credit: Corey Irwin
