Buddy Holly Shows His Promise In This Video. I Still Get Chills Thinking Of What Could Have Been.

When it comes to the titans of rock and roll, very few musicians can measure up to Buddy Holly, whose career and life were cut very tragically short. He was only 22 when he died, but he left a vast imprint on the world of music and his legacy lives on in many forms. Had he lived longer, he would have surely made an even bigger contribution. This video shows his burgeoning talent, which was already on the cusp of breaking out.

Holly is singing with his former group, the Crickets. He’d split with the group shortly before his death. In this clip, though, they are together and playing “That’ll Be the Day”. Like many of Holly’s other songs, it did fantastically well on the charts, and the Beatles even covered it when they were in their earliest incarnation, The Quarrymen.

What made Holly so fascinating to listen to was that he could switch vocal styles on the fly, going from a regular singing voice to falsetto to regular with no problems. People loved that style of music. He was such a creative force and his guitar prowess was what helped make him famous. That’s all on display as he’s singing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in this clip. People loved his bespectacled look too.

Holly’s death on Feb. 3, 1959 was one of the biggest tragedies of music history. He and some of his band members were on a plane that crashed on a cornfield in Iowa. Rock and roll lost a true legend that night. It would have been interesting to see how Holly handled the Beatles coming to America. There have been countless tributes to Holly since then and the group Weezer even wrote a song bearing his name.

Wasn’t Holly something? Did you ever get to see him live? We’d love to have you tell us about your experience in the comments section. Also, please “Like” us on Facebook.