Charles Hardin Holley – known as Buddy Holly
(September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959)
If you took out a map of the United States and traced
a line beginning at New Orleans and running up the
Mississippi River to Memphis, the tip of your finger
would pass through the very birthplace of rock and
roll—a region where nearly every step in its early
development took place and where nearly every
significant contributor to that development was born.
But if the foundation of rock and roll was mostly laid
down within 100 miles of the Mississippi River in the
mid-1950s, the blueprint for what would follow required
the further contributions of a young man born 700 miles
to the west on this day in 1936: Charles Harden Holley.
Writing and performing under the name Buddy Holly,
this Lubbock, Texas, native would have an influence
on rock and roll that would far outlast his tragically
shortened career.
HISTORY