Buddy Holly's plane doesn't Crash

[David M.]

What will his musical career be like?


But also consider....

No American Pie!

[Thande]

Not forgetting Richie Valens and J.P. 'the Big Bopper' Richardson, of course.

[Xen]

The Big Bopper will fade into obscurity as a one hit wonder and die of a heart attack in 1973.

Richie Valens has a few more hits in the early 1960s, but is eventually pushed out of the rock genre by more progressive rock music. He remains a Latino sensation well into the 1980s when he finally retires to Southern California.

Buddy Holly becomes rocks greatest star in the early 1960's, due to this the Beatles, while hugely popular, arent as highly touted. Buddy Holly does get a chance to meet the fab four and takes a liking to them, covering one of their songs 'She was just 17'. Holly gets caught up in the movements of the 1960s, supporting Civil Rights and protesting Vietnam and is introduced to recreational drugs while visiting with John Lennon in London. Holly experiments with his music releasing several highly anticipated singles and a hit album in 1968.

In 1971 Holly is arrested in Chicago for possession of illegal drugs, which costs him his marriage. He checks into rehab and gets cleaned up. In 1973 Holly returns to his rockabilly roots releasing an album that is a commercial flop. He marries a playboy playmate in 1975, having three children with her. He releases a couple of marginally successful records in the 1970s, and becomes to Atlantic City what Elvis is to Las Vegas.

When John Lennon is shot and killed in 1980, Holly announces he is retiring from music. Holly writes and performs a tribute to the slain Beatle, and only performs at benefit shows throughout the decade. In 1988 Holly reemerges into the spotlight by stumping for Michael Dukakis, but retreats back to his Atlantic City home after Dukakis is defeated. In 1992 Holly is found dead by his wife, cause of death is determined to be accidental prescription drug overdose.


The song American Pie is still written, instead of Holly the song is more focused on JFK.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Xen

Buddy Holly becomes rocks greatest star in the early 1960's, due to this the Beatles, while hugely popular, arent as highly touted. Buddy Holly does get a chance to meet the fab four and takes a liking to them, covering one of their songs 'She was just 17'.

I think you're not taking into account the level that the Beatles were influenced by Holly by this point anyway - the first song they recorded as the Quarrymen in 1960 was a cover of Holly's That'll Be The Day, albeit translated into Northern and they released covers of some other songs of his, such as Words of Love and Love is Strange. Lennon also said that Holly strongly influenced his own stage image, particularly the fact that he wore glasses in the early years. So I think there'll be more hero worship when they meet, a bit like how George Harrison treated Roy Orbison when they worked together as the Traveling Wilburys.

[Timmy811]

In one of the GURPS alternate universes Buddy Holly becomes an influential U.S. Senator IIRC.

[nothri]

Sorry for the thread resurrection.

The GURPS world is called "Holly", in which the plane never crashes. The Big Bopper is in Congress, a lot of unspecified performers that suffered violent ends in our world are still alive in this one. The brief blurb presents it as a "rock and roll lover's dream world".

Speaking of GURPS, they had this to say on speculation of alternate earths involving Buddy Holly:

"The obvious change in Buddy Holly's life would be not to end it early, but to prolong it. When he died, he was starting to develop a more complex sound; rock could have matured more quickly through his contributions. His willingness to write for other performers would have helped this. He had also started to think about getting involved in the business side, as a producer; a chain of studios which he ran could have given greater emphasis to the performer's ideas and hastened the emergence of rock as a vehicle for personal statements."

"How would he have dealt with the social crises of the 1960s? It seems likely that he would have supported the civil rights movement. Perhaps the decade would have been remembered more for idealism and less for nihilism, had he lived to see it."

[phx1138]

Originally Posted by Xen

The Big Bopper will fade into obscurity as a one hit wonder and die of a heart attack in 1973.

He won't be missed by me.

Originally Posted by Xen

Richie Valens has a few more hits in the early 1960s, but is eventually pushed out of the rock genre by more progressive rock music. He remains a Latino sensation well into the 1980s when he finally retires to Southern California.

I wonder why he doesn't lead the wave in Tejano. I'm picturing him doing a variation on Linda Ronstadt's Mi Canciones ("Songs of my father"), & beating Selena & Jennifer Lopez & Gloria Estefan to #1 by decades. Or, what about him following Dick Dale & creating a Latin surf sound? Or Latin country, in the fashion of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, or a Latinized Eagles?

Originally Posted by Xen

Buddy Holly becomes rocks greatest star in the early 1960's

He seemed like he was pretty innovative musically. What are the odds of him adopting Latin rhythms & combining it with rockabilly, & coming out sounding a bit like Eagles or Poco?

Originally Posted by Xen

In 1971 Holly is arrested in Chicago for possession of illegal drugs

I see Holly as such a square, he wouldn't do it. He's not Johnny Cash...

Originally Posted by Xen

In 1992 Holly is found dead by his wife, cause of death is determined to be accidental prescription drug overdose.

Why am I seeing Elvis...?

If Holly lives, does he do protest music around Vietnam? Being middle class, white, & Texan, I'd expect him to be taking the Charlie Daniels position: supporting the vets, not opposing the war. Holly does "Still in Saigon"?

If his career is longer, I also see room for more really rockin' covers by Linda.

Something to consider: if they don't die, a lot of careers are going to be affected. There were at least a couple of artists who got their starts filling the now empty slots. Also, the Crickets went solo; would they break up or go their separate ways anyhow?

[Shogo]

Pretty sure Buddy Holly wouldn't descend into drugs.

His child might have been born if he hadn't died. The shock of Holly's death is supposed to be what provoked his wife's miscarriage. (Which must have been beyond tragic. Losing your husband and then immediately losing your unborn child? Fuuuuuuuck.)

Man. I hope this doesn't prevent Six String Samurai from being made.

[Kalvan]

Trying this for the second time:

1: Buddy Holly will go country by 1960 at the latest. His diary said so. This will alienate most of the Liverpool "Merseybeat" scene, causing them to go to skiffle, thus aborting 2/3 of the British Invasion, including the Beatles, though not the London Blues Rock scene of the Stones, the Who, Ten Years After, or Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac. Bob Dilyan will record either at Sun Records (resulting in a feud with Jerry Lee Lewis) or else under Holly, and either way, won't write any of the early songs he's famous for and won'd be credited with inventing Folk Rock, Neil Young will be instead.

To keep a hold of his crown as King of Rock and Roll, Elvis will be forced between late 1957 and 1960 to tour in Europe or watch his star fall back to normal. Nazi War Criminal "Col," well, Waffen SS-Oberführer "Tom Parker" will be more thuroughly exposed to Interopl and/or Mossad and be picked up for trial, which can only have salutory effects on Mr. Presley's later health and career.

Under Holly's influence, Outlaw Country and Southern Rock will be even bigger and last longer, possibly even even into 1983, and only finally be eclipsed by the "New Countrypolitan" of George Strait et al and the first wave of Hair Metal of Quiet Riot and Motley Crue, respectively. In the Nineties, Holly will denounce Wheezer and possibly other Geek Rockers like They Might Be Giants and Post-Out of Time REM as a bunch of "Frauds" and "Plagiarists" in much the same way that Joannie Mitchell has denounced the likes of Natalie Merchant, Dido, Allanis Morrisette, Fiona Apple, Michelle Branch, and even Gwen Stefani and Halley Williams, and John Lytton and Billy Strummer have denounced Green Day, Blink 193, Sum 41, and My Chemical Romance! Holly will also have some rather salty things to say about the Ninties "Young Country" of Garth Brooks, Wade Hayes, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tricia Yearwood, and Leanne Rimes.

2: Valens will fade out by 1965, but not before killing the final flowering of Acoustic Salsa, aborting Electric Salsa entirely, and significantly wounding Latin Jazz. On the other hand, he will have probably plowed the fields enough that the world is ready for Carlos Santanna thirty years early. And the first wave of Latin Metal will probably happen twenty years early, during the Classic Metal era of KISS, Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppellin, and Jethro Tull. Could this possibly butterfly Saturday Night Fever into a turkey that sinks Travolta's career?

3: The Big Bopper was a one-hit wonder in the making, but something tells me he'll join Sha-Na-Na just in time for Woodstock, lending them both some musical historical credit it still wouldn't deserve as he is a legitimate if tangential member of Rock's founding generation, and vice versa. He later ends up as a DJ on a Miami-area Oldies station. If the world is lucky, he becomes an East Coast "Dr. Demento," but I wouldn't hold my breath. More likely he starves onthe street or languishes in a nursing home after Clear Channel takes over "his" station and throws him out on his rear.

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

No one outside of north central iowa will ever have heard of the crystal ballroom, and it will have gone under by now.

Maybe even Clear Lake would be swallowed up as a suburb of Mason city.

[JMT]

Jesus Christ, the Necro...

[Emperor Norton I]

I thought this was an exciting and new thread. But its a necro.

[phx1138]

Originally Posted by Emperor Norton I

I thought this was an exciting and new thread. But its a necro.

Honestly, some people do nothing but complain...

Don't start new threads on old topics. Don't revive old ones.

So if you've got something new to say on an old subject, shut up & go away?

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Originally Posted by phx1138

Honestly, some people do nothing but complain...

Don't start new threads on old topics. Don't revive old ones.

So if you've got something new to say on an old subject, shut up & go away?

No. You start a new thread, and link to the old one(s). That way people can go look at what had been said previously.

[The Ubbergeek]

Originally Posted by phx1138

Honestly, some people do nothing but complain...

Don't start new threads on old topics. Don't revive old ones.

So if you've got something new to say on an old subject, shut up & go away?

Re-starting a related thread is always ok, unless it's controversial stuff or such. Remaking a thread from scratches and all. Linking to old thread if wished.

[Timmy811]

Originally Posted by JMT

Jesus Christ, the Necro...

Necroing is perfectly fine if the person doing it has something worthwhile to say.

[ND4]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4P_qAMAnKs

The lyric about Buddy Holly would get removed if he doesn't die I presume.

[Mark E.]

When the founding fathers of rock and roll made their mark, most of the impact came in their first two or three years. After all, when Chuck Berry went to prison in 1962, he wasn’t missed.

By the end of 1958, rock music was under attack by conservatives for being “evil.” That could explain why Holly might have considered country music for a while. He and Waylon Jennings could have trended “country rock.”

Buddy Holly, though, has the distinction of making a two-punch impact on the evolution of popular music, as the Beatles embraced his style. Even the name Beatles reflects Buddy Holly’s former back-up band, the Crickets.

With Buddy Holly alive, the Quarrymen might have been less aggressive at adopting his style. How different they would have sounded is a matter of speculation.

Consider how they might have interacted. How would Buddy Holly have reacted to the Quarrymen’s hair styles and the upcoming counterculture movement? Suppose Buddy Holly was brushed wrong by some of John Lennon’s political expressions?

[ColeMercury]

The thing about the "Buddy Holly will go country" thing is that there's a good chance he'd shift styles again. Hmm, maybe he could reinvent himself several times over like Dylan.

[DanMcCollum]

This reminds me of a conversation I had at a houseparty some time ago. I was talking with a friend, when mentioned this POD. We were talking about the possibility of a psychedelic Buddy Holly. My friend mentioned that in that case, he may not have been born. He asked, would it be worth not having him around? Everyone in the party, look around, and said "YES!" Poor guy