Holly Hoopla Decca Records Ensures Rocker Won’t Fade Away With Tribute Album

Ironies and misgivings abound around a tribute album for Buddy Holly coming out of Nashville.

But purely as a listening experience, “not fade away” lives up to the Decca Records’ hype as a joyous celebration of the late legend’s music.

The rock ‘n’ roll great would have turned 60 this year. His first recording sessions were for Decca in Nashville, and the Holly catalog is owned by MCA, parent company of Decca.

The hoopla to promote “not fade away” includes a star-studded Nashville party and a two-part television special debuting Feb. 5-6 on The Nashville Network based on the making of the record.

One kink with the concept: Holly, it appears, was unhappy with the Music City, where he wasn’t even allowed to play guitar on his own recording sessions. The Lubbock, Texas, native blossomed when given more artistic freedom by producer Norman Petty.

Most of the classic Buddy Holly & The Crickets records were made at Petty’s studio in Clovis, N.M., almost a thousand miles away from Nashville.

According to his friend Waylon Jennings, Holly left the country music capital bitter and dejected after his first recordings here in 1956. And who knows if Holly would have approved of the opening song on “not fade away,” which features the modern-day Hollies accompanying Holly’s 1959 vocal of “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

“He would have laughed and laughed about the irony of it all,” Jennings said. “But anything I can do to pay tribute to Buddy and his music, I’m going to do.”

Jennings and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits contribute the album’s closing song, a haunting, slow take on one of Holly’s last efforts, “Learning the Game.”

“I remember when Buddy put that down on tape at his apartment,” Jennings said. “He mentioned to me, ‘This is going to be a good song, but it’s not finished.”’

Knopfler picked out the song. Jennings said he’d do it as long as he wasn’t asked to finish the lyrics. Knopfler solved the problem with an extended guitar solo midsong, followed by Jennings simply repeating the first verse.

That kind of infectious can-do spirit, from artists ranging from the Band to the Mavericks to Mary Chapin Carpenter to Los Lobos and Nanci Griffith, lift “not fade away” above the phoned-in performances that have started to dominate many tributes.

Holly’s repute is such that Decca executives had the luxury of using only artists who had “a fire in their eyes” to participate, said Decca Vice President Mark Wright.

“If we asked someone, ‘Are you interested in doing a tribute, did you love Buddy Holly?’ and they went ‘Yeah, I kinda liked him’ - well, we didn’t pursue it.”

Paul McCartney, who owns publishing rights to Holly’s songs and is a longtime admirer (the Beatles name is partially a play on that of Holly’s band, The Crickets), isn’t on the record. “He’s the one we most wanted but couldn’t get,” Wright said.

“But he was doing the Beatles documentary and reunion at the time we were getting this together.”

Holly, described by Decca executive Paul Cohen as “the biggest no-talent I have ever worked with” after the 1956 Nashville sessions, went on to become a rock ‘n’ roll legend second only to Elvis Presley.

His first hit, “That’ll Be The Day,” hit No. 1 in 1957. He only had a handful of others until his death in a plane crash (along with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper) two years later.

Holly’s influence far transcends his considerable success. All the English invasion bands were fans - The Rolling Stones opened their last tour with Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” and one of the earliest tapes of the young Beatles is a run-through of “That’ll Be The Day.”

It’s just about impossible to sit through a concert by Texas troubadours like Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Monte Warden without hearing a Holly tune, usually as an encore.

Even the standard rock band setup, with a leader who writes the material and sings, can arguably be traced to Holly and Carl Perkins.

Kevin Montgomery, a young pop-rock singer working on his second album for A&M Records, sings on one of the standout cuts on “not fade away.”

“It was kind of a dream of mine, to pay my respects,” Montgomery said. He first heard Holly’s music as a child, via his father, Nashville record producer Bob Montgomery.

“He and my father were best friends, growing up. They had a little duo, Buddy & Bob. They learned to play guitar together and when they were 13-years-old, they picked cotton to make the money to make demos.”