Watch as teachers Ryan Montejano and Lyndsey Capps along with students Sarah Isett, Billy Overstreet and Michael Isett from Liberty Learning Center pay a special tribute to Lubbock music great Buddy Holly.

By Sherri Cruz | For the Avalanche-Journal

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Buddy Holly tattoos, Buddy Holly glasses, even a Buddy Holly flash mob.

You couldn’t ask for more on Buddy Holly Day in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Holly, accepted Holly’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Capitol Records building on Vine Street.

Gary Busey speaks next to Maria Elena Holly during a ceremony on Wednesday where Buddy Holly’s star was unveiled on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. Busey portrayed Holly in the movie “The Buddy Holly Story.”

Big stars and big fans were there. Holly’s music was playing.

Gary Busey, who starred as Holly in “The Buddy Holly Story,” began by saying: “This is a magical day.”

Busey said he wasn’t chosen to play Holly by the studios or the casting agents.

“I do sincerely feel in my heart, Charles Hardin Holly chose me to play him in the movie,” Busey said.

The actor was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Holly. Music producer Peter Asher and Phil Everlyof the Everly Brothers also spoke.

Asher produced “Listen to Me: Buddy Holly,” a Holly tribute record released Tuesday, featuring artists Stevie Nicks, Zooey Deschanel and Chris Isaak. Asher donned a pair of Holly’s trademark horn-rimmed glasses while he spoke.

He said they were the first pair of glasses he ever bought. “These are the actual glass from back then.”

Maria Elena Holly choked up when she talked about what Holly might think of the day. She also thanked the fans.

“I’m saying now, my dear Buddy, you loved to go to the movies. You told me one of your dreams was to write scores for movies and make your mark in Hollywood,” she said. “Well, my dear, half of your dream unfortunately didn’t come true, but the other came true with a beautiful star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

The fans were in full force.

Peter Asher speaks next to Maria Elena Holly during a ceremony on Wednesday where Buddy Holly's star was unveiled on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

Wednesday would’ve been his 75th birthday.

Larry Stump and his wife, Laurene, drove up from Phoenix. “We came just for this,” he said.

He brought a poster from Buddy Holly’s last performance. He remembers being in high school the day Holly died in a plane crash in Iowa in 1959.

“After we heard about it, we left school,” Stump said. “Me being in trouble my whole senior year, I got in trouble for leaving.”

Mike Randall and his wife, Janine, also from Phoenix, wouldn’t have missed the ceremony for the world.

They both play in a Buddy Holly tribute band.

Brad Tierney stood out in the crowd with a little bit of a Buddy Holly look going on.

“I’ve always been a huge Buddy Holly fan,” he said.

He and his girlfriend, Kristy Helton, also a Holly fan, are from Iowa.

Pat Tyson’s interest in Buddy Holly’s music rose after watching “The Buddy Holly Story.” She said he was one of a kind.

“Even his look with the horned-rimmed glasses defied the look of the time.” She drove from Glendale, Calif.

Jennifer Shaw’s dad got her into Holly and roots rock ’n’ roll when she was a little girl. Her father used to come to Lubbock every year for Buddy Holly week.

After her father died, she got a tattoo — Buddy Holly glasses across her back.

Kevin Magowan, the man who worked to get Holly’s star on the Walk of Fame, was feeling fine.

“I feel blessed, grateful and thankful. It’s a dream come true. You plant the seeds, you water them, you work hard. Then the day comes,” he said. “That’ll be the day is today.”

Beck Houdasell carries a rose to place on Buddy Holly's grave Tuesday. Every year, Beck's father, Clay, packs up the family and brings them to Lubbock from Amarillo to put flowers on the grave.

It was cold and windy Tuesday morning near the entrance to the Lubbock Cemetery, not entirely unlike one would imagine the field in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy Holly died 50 years earlier.

Guitar picks, pennies and a few decorations are scattered around the rock legend’s headstone, so unassuming it could easily be missed if it weren’t for the large sign pointing to its location.

The grave of Lubbock’s famous son would serve as a point of pilgrimage for faithful fans in honor of the 50th anniversary of the day music, along with Holly, died.

The music experts

Jared Duncan and Julie Heller pulled up to Holly’s grave just a little after 8:30 a.m.

Duncan, a recent graduate of Texas Tech searching for a job in the music industry, said the appeal of Holly’s songs first touched his life when he was young and his parents would play the old tunes for him.

“His music is just captivating,” he said. “I mean 50 years later it’s still a big part of the music world.”

For Heller, a Tech music education graduate student, it was a trip overseas that would show her the importance of Holly’s music around the world.

While touring London when she was 16, Heller said a large neon sign shaped like a silhouette of Holly’s head advertising the musical “Buddy” both surprised her and filled her with curiosity.

“It’s just the significance of that impact, and how different it would have been if he stayed alive,” she said of her intrigue with Holly.

Fans will travel

It was a trip years in the making.

Coming from Gloucester, England, Phillip and Caroline Jenkins decided on Lubbock instead of Clear Lake as their Holly destination for one reason: because he’s here.

Caroline, dressed in a shirt adorned with the name Peggy Sue, said she was first inspired by Holly’s music when she was young.

Caroline Jenkins makes a video of Buddy Holley's grave Tuesday morning. Jenkins and her husband, Phillip, traveled all the way from Gloucester, England, to visit Holley's grave on the 50th anniversary of his death.

“It’s just good music,” she said. “Just everything.”

Like many across the pond, where Holly has garnered a large following, Phil said he also found himself drawn to the rocker’s tunes, so much so he was willing to bring his wife to Lubbock for her 40th birthday.

After spending a few days in the Hub City, Phil said he wasn’t too impressed with the city’s efforts to honor its most recognizable native.

“(I’m a) bit disappointed on a whole,” he said. “Apart from the official monuments and stuff, there’s not really much here. In England, everyone knows Buddy.”

And if it were England, his grave would have been covered in flowers, the couple agreed.

Lots of ‘Peggy Sue’

John Ellis remembers a special moment he had while staying at his grandparents’ Houston home when he was young.

“When I was 8 years old in Houston, 1958, I had this little old radio and I would listen to ‘Peggy Sue’ over and over,” Ellis said. “I really liked his music.”

After moving to Lubbock, Ellis said, his trips to Holly’s grave site started in 1971, and became a peaceful time of reflection when he was a young man.

I was surprised to see it was just a simple headstone,” he said. “When I first came out I thought it would be a big monument.”

Ellis, an employee at Southwest Airlines, said he almost had his own Peggy Sue moment as he watched the song’s namesake, Peggy Sue Gerron, board a plane for Iowa earlier in the week. Ever the shy one, he just turned away.

“I really should have said hello when I had the chance,” he said.

Childhood memories

Glenda Ward was just 3 when she saw Holly and the Crickets play a set on top of the now demolished Hi-D-Ho burger joint. It was a moment that would leave a lasting impression.

Now a home health care worker in Slaton, Ward spends her spare time playing bass guitar in a band with Holly’s old friends.

She leaves a wreath at his grave each year, but Ward said it’s the least she can do for a man and artist who did so much to influence the world.

“John Q Public probably doesn’t notice that, but others do,” she said of Holly’s musical legacy.

Ward, whose favorite Holly songs include “That’ll Be the Day” and “Heart Beat,” was more than happy to talk to other visitors at the cemetery about lesser known haunts of the Crickets in their early days.

“It’s really a more sad day,” she said of the anniversary of the singer’s death. “You just can’t help but feel the pain again of what happened 50 years ago.”

The sun set early at Holly’s grave, just as it did on his life. But for those who remember, those who faithfully take time to honor the singer in their own way, his spirit, legacy and music can truly live on forever.

Try this multiple-choice quiz:

Why was I hiking through a bean field in north-central Iowa a week ago today?

1. I like beans.

2. I was tired of driving south on I-35 from summer vacation in Wisconsin with the in-laws and needed to feel something different under my right foot than the accelerator.

3. I’m just weird.

4. My daughter Lucy and I were searching for a memorial marking the crash site where Buddy Holly’s plane went down almost 50 years ago just north of Clear Lake, Iowa.

The answer is number 4 … but 3 is always appropriate.

Before moving to Lubbock, I knew who Buddy Holly was … but since coming here I’ve learned a lot more.

I didn’t realize how much he influenced rock ‘n’ roll, for example, creating the basic lineup of the modern rock band.

I knew some of the songs, but not all the songs.

Joe Ely’s powerful live version of “Not Fade Away” has become one of my favorite songs and pulls me through workouts on my iPod.

I’ve even met Peggy Sue.

The movie “The Buddy Holly Story” came out a year after I graduated from college. I’d never seen it until moving here and literally came across it flipping channels a few months back.

There’s a scene where actor Gary Busey, playing Holly, is saying goodbye to his girlfriend at what is supposed to be a Lubbock bus station.

There are mountains in the background.

In fact, they looked like the mountains behind my college campus.

I checked imdb.com (Internet movie database) for filming locations … the whole thing was shot in and around L.A.

Now I understand it costs a lot more to shoot on location … but they couldn’t move the camera so the mountains were not so obvious? And from what I’ve heard, there were many other concerns about accuracy in that movie.

But, to quote my friend on the page to the right, I’m digressing.

As I’ve written before, the music coming out of this town and region is amazing.

I’ve enjoyed learning more about Buddy Holly.

I hope you went to the Fourth of July celebration in Mackenzie Park last month.

The Maines Brothers Band, Richie McDonald and Mac Davis were wonderful.

And folks around here have been able to follow their careers.

But what would have happened if that plane had not crashed?

Would we have also heard 71-year-old Buddy Holly singing to his hometown at the Centennial Fourth of July celebration?

What other influence would he have had on popular music?

The more I learn about Charles Hardin Holley, the more fascinated I become.

So there we were, hiking through the bean field about a half-mile off a gravel road.

Lucy and I found the metal “memorial” in the shape of a guitar with three records … on the border between the bean field and some corn fields.

The guitar has the names of the three stars who died in the famous crash … Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.

Also interesting was the stuff people left around the monument, a driver’s license, beads, coins, “Wailin’ Waylon” buttons in recognition of Littlefield’s Waylon Jennings, who as most people know, gave his seat on the plane to the Big Bopper.

There were also some Holly-style glasses. I stuck my business card near them … wishing I had a laminated one. There was a fierce-looking storm coming out of the west and a week later, I wonder if that business card is now paper pulp.

But I thought it appropriate for something to be there that said Lubbock. There may have been other things from our area, but the pile in front of the memorial was thick in some places and partly covered by dirt. Plus, I felt uncomfortable moving things at a “memorial.”

After shooting some video and photos you can see on our Web site, we headed into Clear Lake to see the Surf Ballroom, where Holly played his last show … we drove down Buddy Holly Place to find it.

Then we hit the road, trying to dodge the bad weather, heading back to Holly’s hometown.