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Not that many people know that Buddy Holly actually opened for Elvis Presley – it was 1955 – when a very young Elvis played a show at the high school in Lubbock, Texas, Buddy’s home town.  There is a black and white photo, not that hard to find on the internet, of the budding (gorgeous even then) 20-year-old Elvis walking unconcernedly through a crowd of teenage admirers, not noticing Buddy and his oversized horned rim glasses (Buddy almost lost in the crowd, about 15 feet behind the future King) despite Holly’s playing on the same bill.  (There is even a bit of color film of Elvis and Holly backstage in Lubbock – but not together – on YouTube.)

Buddy once said, “Without Elvis, none of us would have made it,” and I suspect he was right.  But Buddy Holly & the Crickets gave us the concept of the modern rock band, with a lead singer up front playing solid body electric guitar, and playing it well.  Buddy Holly wrote most of his best material; Elvis Presley wrote none of his best material (his writing credits were extorted from the real writers by Presley’s overwrought manager, Colonel Tom Parker).  I can make a pretty good argument that Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard were much more powerful and genuine rock’n’rollers than Elvis Presley ever thought of being.  And certainly “Rave On” by Holly is as good a rocker as anyone ever did.

But the world is the way it is, and Presley has sold millions and millions of recordings since he died – more, incredibly, than he sold when he lived.  Now, to commemorate Elvis’s 75th birthday, BMG has rolled out yet another box set reissue of the King’s career.   The Franklin Mint is issuing a 36 CD set of every recording released by Presley in his lifetime.  Sheesh.

Until now, the musical legacy of the immortal Mr. Holly has been handled poorly.  Holly released only three albums in his lifetime, but left a lot more music behind.  In 1979, MCA released a 6-LP (or 6-cassette) box set called The Complete Buddy Holly which was quite good, though very far from complete.  Still, the liner notes were a great step forward for the Holly discography, and the box was attractive, well made, and essential for collectors.

And then … nothing.  When the CD era arrived, MCA did not release that set on compact disc.  Some fans expected, or at least hoped, that the leading compiler of American roots music, a German company called Bear Family, would put together a knock-out Buddy Holly set but … nothing.  In 1993, MCA put out a CD collection of Buddy with about 50 songs on it, hitting the highlights, but not really capturing the singer’s work.  Countless reissues and compilations of varying quality and selection did not help this problem, especially because some of Holly’s work was recorded solo in his New York apartment before he died, and then overdubbed posthumously.  (These legendary “apartment tapes” were bootlegged in 1995 on a superb 4-CD set called What You Been A-Missin’, which filled in many of the gaps in the original MCA set.  Following a National Public Radio story on the apartment tapes, collectors went crazy trying to find them, and for a month or two, copies of What You Been A-Missin’ sold for more than $1200 on eBay.)  As for the overdubbing, there were multiple overdubs of some of the very same songs, first by Jack Hansen and later, more extensively, by Holly’s producer, Norman Petty, and a band called The Fireballs.  To add to the mess, even more recordings turned up of songs on which Holly had played guitar for someone else’s session.

In 1995 (or maybe 2000; it’s hard to tell) an enterprising bootlegger calling himself Tex-Mex Records collected a lot of Holly material, some of it previously unknown, and released it in a 7-CD set called The Buddy I Knew, which contained a good deal more than the MCA set (such as outtakes, commercial spots and live performances), but, owing to its nature, was hardly available to the average fan.  And this set had no song annotations whatsoever, a real deficiency.

Then, the deluge.

In 2005 or so, a label called Purple Chick pushed an internet-only set, The Complete Buddy Holly, into the virtual universe, along with nice artwork, completely sane organization and really good notes.  Purple Chick went the extra mile, assembling sessions produced by Buddy Holly for his friends including Sonny Curtis, Waylon Jennings and Carolyn Hester and also those on which he played.  There is even a CD’s worth of songs from Holly’s record collection to give the listener an idea of what influenced Holly.  There is also a disc of interviews with Buddy Holly that also includes various newscasts about the plane crash.  A stupendous set, not sold in stores.

Next, on the 50th anniversary of Holly’s death, Geffen Records released two sets, 60 prime cuts on The Memorial Collection, spread over three CDs (beware the shoddy cardboard case though), and Down the Line: Rarities, another 59 cuts on two discs, including, at long last, the undubbed “apartment tapes.”

And finally, Hip-O Select, an online store, has put together Not Fade Away: The Complete Studio Recordings and More, 203 tracks on 6 CDs in a beautiful hardback book with rare photos and correct and helpful annotations – the kind of set Bear Family would do if Bear Family had obtained the rights.  Hip-O says it is only making 7000 copies of this item, which retails for $120 but can be found on other sites for a bit less.  Beware, as Hip-O offerings often sell out.  This is really the definitive set for the interested Holly fan.  This official set has eight or nine tracks not rounded up by Purple Chick, but it is missing the live recordings and interviews that Purple Chick includes. 

And, incredibly, there are still a few items not on either set.  (That’s hard for even me to believe.)  For those, you need two CD collections on the El Toro label: Hollybilly - The Complete 1956 Recordings and Not Fade Away: The Complete 1957 Recordings.  At that point, you own the known universe of Buddy Holly, on 21 discs (Purple Chick, Hip-O and El Toro).

The man’s output, in my opinion, is worth all this effort.   As I get older, I see that Buddy Holly’s influence has been pretty astounding.  That’s Charles Hardin “Buddy” Holley – he did not fade away.  He just left too soon.