Western and Bop

Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery 'Buddy and Bob'

Released 1977 on MCA CORAL
CDLM 8055

Liner Notes:

'Several of Buddy Holly's hits contain musical references to the music he grew up listening to, but in 1954 his preoccupation remained with his roots music. The demos Holly recorded between 1954 and 1956 for the most part owed more to artists like the Louvin Brothers and Hank Williams than they did to the R&B artists who were so popular at the time.

On many of his early recordings Holly was joined on vocals by Bob Montgomery who had been a close friend since they both started Junior High School in 1949. Their musical interests developed along similar lines and by the time they reached High School Buddy and Bob had begun to write songs and perform together at school functions and parties.

It was in High School that Holly and Montgomery won first prize in a song contest for their performance of a song Montgomery had written with Don Guess - 'Flower Of My Heart'

It wasn't long before Buddy and Bob began to look for other ways to broaden their musical horizons and maybe even go after a recording contract. In their home town of Lubbock, Texas, there were no recording studios, but the town did boast a couple of radio stations, of which KDAV was more inclined towards the kind of music Buddy and Bob were performing.

The station's owner, Dave Stone, and two of the DJ's, Ben Hall and Hipockets Duncan were interested enough to try to assist them in fulfilling their ambitions, even on a local level.

Hipockets, aside from working as an announcer, took care of booking artists for shows sponsored by KDAV and the station's live talent spot, The Sunday Party. Following several appearances on the show, Buddy and Bob, together with bass player Larry Welborn became popular enough with the listeners to be given a regular half hour spot on the programme.

The earliest recordings were made at KDAV's studios - in many cases these only survived on the station's acetate dubs and the quality sometimes leaves something to be desired.

During 1954 and 1955 Holly and Montgomery also travelled to Dallas, where they recorded at Jim Belk Studios, and to Nesman Recording Studios in nearby Wichita Falls.

On these trips they were often accompanied by other musicians and friends...Sonny Curtis, who later provided some impressive guitar picking for Holly, played country fiddle on many of the Buddy and Bob recordings while Don Guess played bass on these and some of the Nashville tracks. Jerry Allison, later the drummer with the Crickets, had to be content to sit on the sidelines for now since drums were not deemed to be a necessary part of country music at that time.

Buddy and Bob's efforts failed to produce anything more than local interest and the nearest they got to a record company was when they buttonholed the local CBS Records promotion man who was visiting KDAV and gave him a copy of some of their demos to take back to New York. If anyone there was impressed the boys never got to hear about it.

Holly and Montgomery meanwhile had begun to develop their own rockabilly style and by the time they recorded 'Down The Line' in 1955 Jerry Allison had become part of their group, bringing their sound closer to rock 'n' roll than anything they had attempted previously.

Buddy and Bob split up following Decca's decision to sign Holly as a solo artist , although Montgomery continued to write with Holly - several of Holly's best-known songs resulted from the partnership - later Bob moved to Nashville where he became a successful music publisher and record producer.'

John Beecher 1977

Listen to MP3 Samples:

• Flower of My Heart
• Door To My Heart
• Soft Place In My Heart