Let’s pretend Buddy Holly didn’t die in 1959. The plane he was in took off and landed without incident. No music died that day.
Given his talent, what would his career have been like? Was he someone like Elvis, who had a multi-year, influential career? Or was he more like Bill Haley, someone who produced a few classic songs but ended up not having the kind of career longevity (and multi-faceted career) that Elvis did?
I guess the subquestion here is: How singular a talent was Holly, and how influential was he likely to be based on that talent alone?
Buddy wrote his songs and kept an eye out for his business. Maybe more like a Paul Anka or Smokey Robinson, who ended up songwriters and music professionals as well as performers. Or Johnny Cash, who was big, then faded, then had a big comeback or two.
I think Holly would have had a long career, but certainly not as a superstar like Elvis. Holly was a better songwriter than Haley (Haley’s biggest hits were cover songs), and he could have adjusted to changing tastes. He would have had a fairly productive career.
Yeah, there’s a false dichotomy there. It’s like saying that player X is a good player but would he ever become Babe Ruth as if that’s the only mark for stardom.
Holly would have made a more palatable Chuck Berry. Both led ensembles, both wrote original songs and both were very talented at both. A decent career at the top of the charts, then a fade and occasional comeback tour with some critical attention. That’s not the worst legacy to have.
Just to be clear, “more like” was intended to position Haley and Presley as opposite ends of a spectrum. I figured Holly would end up somewhere between the two, and not being as influential as Elvis isn’t some kind of slam.
I have a hunch (nothing more than that) that Holly would have turned back toward his country roots and become more of a Willy Nelson or Hank Williams type star.
Look at how many people have covered Holly’s tunes. Live longer, write more tunes, make mucho dinero. He’d probably come out and perform once in a while, but he would have been set just from royalties. Assuming that he didn’t get screwed like so many artists of that era did.
But it factually was quite enduring, in this universe. What about not dying would make him less popular today? In death, Buddy Holly seems to be the number 2 white rock icon of the 1950s, and I’m not so sure that changes if he lives. He could have gone psychedelic or folky or something and either alienated some fans or jolted his career over and above its already lofty position.
But I don’t think there is anything he could have done to make his existing music less popular than it is today. At worst, you get a late career slump and a bunch of fans saying “remember when Buddy Holly was great?” Kinda like Bob Dylan, for awhile. Or for a more realistic comparison, how about Roy Orbison or Johnny Cash?
For all that, he could have invented psychedelic music. Wrote the alt-history version of Sgt Pepper ahead of the Beatles. He could have single-handedly drove back the British invasion, made the Beatles and the Stones just local bands with medium success. Opened AND closed Woodstock. He also would have cured cancer.
The Stones would have been better as just a local band. I had always thought that way until I heard a nice raucous bar-blues song that I didn’t know who it was by and when it turned out to be by the Stones my suspicions were confirmed. Then again I don’t like to go to venues of more than a few hundred people so I may be biased.
I can definitely see this. He was already maturing and changing as a performer, songwriter, and producer before his death – for example, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” (released around the time of his death) is considerably different from his early hits, like “That’ll Be the Day.” I suspect that he would have continued to change and innovate, and I see no reason why he couldn’t have had a long, influential career in the music industry, in some capacity.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you can’t recognize the Stones when you hear them (who else sounds like Jagger?) then you may not be qualified to comment.
Don’t forget Holly was only 22 when he died in 1959. He wrote a number of classics in his short life. I suspect he would have been a major artist in the 60s. I am guessing he would have trouble keeping up with changing tastes in the 70s but you never know.
