Last week we covered the 50th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death with a rare tape of a Buddy Holly phone call to Decca Records and some mp3s from the original master tapes.
Here are some really cool pictures, all from a new photography exhibition at Proud Galleries, called simply “Buddy Holly.”
These albums are out today and several are streaming right now on MySpace:
Dan Auerbach, Keep It Hid (Nonesuch)
Lily Allen, It’s Not Me, It’s You (Capitol)
Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique 20th Anniversary Edition (Capitol)
Beck, Odelay 10th Anniversary Edition Box Set (Original)
Golem, Citizen Boris (JDub)
Buddy Holly, Memorial Collection (Geffen)
Hot Panda, Volcano … Bloody Volcano (Mint)
India.Arie, Testimony, Vol 2., Love & Politics (Universal Republic)
Jorma Kaukonen, River of Time (Red House)
The Lonely Island, Incredibad (Republic)
Ben Lee, The Rebirth of Venus (New West)
Miranda Lee Richards, Light of X (Nettwerk)
A new weekly roundup of what the CL team is listening to right now.
Wild Sweet Orange
We Have Cause To Be Uneasy (2008)
This is one the most well-rounded albums I’ve heard in a long time. It came in a press packet to me last year, and my loyalty and love for this album has not faded since. In fact, while grocery shopping yesterday, it was all I listened to on my iPod and it made selecting vegetables a shit-ton of fun. The album is very deep lyrically, and I appreciate the diversity in the song selection. Some songs are surprising because the intro doesn’t give you any indication of what the bulk of the song is going to sound like, other songs are slow but pick up at the end, and some songs simply rock out with screaming and drums. Warning: Don’t listen to this album if you aren’t in the mood to be forced to contemplate the meaning of life.
Recommended tracks: “Tilt,” “House of Regret,” “Land of No Return”
–Aly
Big L
Lifestylez Ov da Poor & Dangerous (1995)
Big L’s wordplay is still impressive more than a dozen years later. The rhyme scheme and wit of his verse on “Da Graveyard” (which features a very young sounding Jay-Z) would embarrass most of today’s so-called heavy hitters. The title track and “All Black” have that explicit, self-assured swagger your inner alpha male loves. Big L definitely deserves to be on the Brooklyn Hip Hop Mount Rushmore and that’s saying something.
–Infinite Skillz
Plants and Animals
Parc Avenue (2008)
Montreal trio Plants and Animals put out their full-length debut last February, got nominated for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize (a coveted Canadian award with $20,000 in booty for the winner), earned top marks from PopMatters and Pitchfork, and somehow flew completely under my radar. Sad because this album is indie rock gold with its warm and majestic balladry, sometimes bolstered by grandiose choral arrangements, other times gently meandering into the rootsy poignancy of ‘70s folk psychedelia.
Recommended tracks: “Bye Bye Bye” and “Faerie Dance”
–Leilani Read the rest of this entry »
On Feb. 3, 1959, a four-seat airplane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) crashed into a cornfield eight miles north of Clear Lake, Iowa.
The term “rock ‘n’ roll” had only come into widespread use about three years before.
The seeds planted between 1958-1964, between Elvis and the Beatles, go often unheralded in rock history. Motown got its start; it was Roy Orbison’s peak — same for the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, not to mention Phil Spector, Stax and Muscle Shoals, the Shirelles, Del Shannon and James Brown.
Here are some Buddy Holly tunes for your listening enjoyment, below the jump:
Buddy Holly perished in a plane crash 50 years ago today. Whether that was “the day the music died” depends on point of view, but it was clearly a watershed event in rock ‘n’ roll history.
Holly’s short career was beset by bad business dealings. On Feb. 28, 1957, Holly hooked up his reel-to-reel tape recorder to the phone and made a call to Decca Records, his label at the time, inquiring about a release from his contract. He then tried to persuade an executive, unsuccessfully, to let him re-record songs that had been cut in a disastrous Nashville session and tossed in the label vaults. One of those songs was “That’ll Be the Day,” which reached No. 1 late that year.
To listen to an mp3 of the conversation, click here. To read more on the situation surrounding the call, go here.
If you want to hear three of Holly’s hits, including “That’ll Be the Day,” try here.
