Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story

About the show

In 1956, with the support of Lubbock, Texas, radio DJ, Hipockets Duncan, Buddy and his two friends form a Country & Western band – Buddy Holly & the Crickets – and begin a career in music. After a difficult start at Decca Records in Nashville, they sign a contract with up-and-coming, innovative record producer Norman Petty, who is based in Clovis, New Mexico. Buddy Holly & the Crickets start to record hits from the studio built in Norman's backyard, among them "That'll Be the Day", which climbed the charts to number one. Buddy Holly & the Crickets became the hottest act in the country and began a national tour. Buddy and his band go to New York where they perform at the Apollo Theater in New York City, making history as the first white band to perform there. While recording in New York, Buddy proposes to Maria Elena Santiago, the Puerto Rican receptionist of his music publisher after a courtship of all of five hours. Newly married and ambitious, he shifts focus to New York and a rift develops between him and the Crickets. After a declaration of home truths during a recording session, the band split and Buddy unexpectedly finds himself having to pursue a solo career. Buddy joins The Winter Dance Party of 1959, a bus tour through the Midwest quenching the teenage thirst for the "new music called Rock 'n' Roll" The tour is hard work, the weather conditions appalling and the performers are alternating between sleeping in the luggage racks and dropping into hospital to be treated for frostbite. The story ends on February 3, 1959, after a rocking concert with the "Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson and Ritchie Valens at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Buddy makes the fateful decision to break his promise to his pregnant wife not to fly, as he and the other two headliners board a small plane and take off into the night destined for their next show. During a snow storm, in the dead of night, the plane crashes and spares no survivors.