Band members long time Holly fans
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded its own version of “Maybe Baby” for the popular Buddy Holly tribute album called “Not Fade Away.”
Their inclusion seemed likely. After all, the band already had recorded Holly’s “Rave On” back in 1971, and “Oh Boy” and “Not Fade Away” on later albums.
Yet Dirt Band guitarist Jeff Hanna is astonished when asked how he felt upon being asked to contribute to the Holly tribute.
“Are you kidding? We weren’t asked. We begged,” said Hanna.
He explained, “Mark Wright, who is one of the vice presidents of Decca, was here in town (Nashville). And I’d found out about the project from a friend that had engineered The Crickets’ version of `Not Fade Away’ at Woodstock. I thought, `Wow, finally a tribute album for someone who deserves a tribute.’
“And so I tracked this guy with Decca down and I just hounded him. I gave him copies of our other Buddy Holly stuff. And maybe just so I would go away and leave him alone, he let us be on the record.”
Hanna said the band considered recording “Think It Over” (eventually contributed by The Tractors) but decided instead to do “Maybe Baby.”
“That song just hit us,” he said. “And we were told some time later that Buddy’s original work-tape or demo was closer to the way we did it than the way he finally recorded it.”
His love for Holly’s music dates back to a time before he even played guitar. Hanna said, “I had an older brother who was a teen-ager in the ’50s. I’d drive around with him in his old car. He’d drive fast with the radio cranked and music coming out of this crappy little speaker. And still Buddy’s music affected us.
“`That’ll Be the Day’ just killed me, knocked me out. So did `Words of Love.’ When it came time for me to pick up a guitar, Buddy, Elvis, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry – those were the guys who gave me a road map I could follow to find my own sound.”
Hanna is aware that Lubbock is Holly’s birthplace. “The last time we drove through Lubbock, we even made a point of stopping to look at the statue again.”
By WILLIAM KERNS
A-J Entertainment editor
