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From Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, February 5, 1997

That'll be the day when Buddy Holly's forgotten

By FRED POVEY
Knight-Ridder

Rock 'n roll singer Buddy Holly, who died 38 years ago Monday in a plane crash, lived only 22 years; he's been gone almost twice that many. His string of hit singles spanned just 22 months. So why, nearly four decades after ''the day the music died,'' are so many fans still reminiscing about him?

Because as much as anyone, Buddy Holly personified rock 'n roll. Well, all right, he didn't have the charisma of an Elvis Presley or a John Lennon. But his music almost effortlessly blended traditional pop, country music and rhythm & blues, and that's what rock 'n roll was all about.

Like Chuck Berry, Holly was a singer-songwriter more than a decade before that term came into vogue; yet he was an equally strong interpreter of songs written by others - Berry's ''Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,'' Little Richard's ''Ready Teddy,'' the Elvis hit ''You're So Square (Baby I Don't Care).'' Like Smokey Robinson, Holly took everyday words of love and turned them into poetry. Like Paul McCartney, he seemed to have a limitless ability to create original, memorable melodies. And he and his Crickets had instrumental chops on a par with the Sun Records gang.

The list of artists Buddy Holly influenced down the line is even longer than the list of those who influenced him. The Beatles named themselves after The Crickets, and The Hollies chose their name in honor of Buddy. Bobby Vee, who filled in at a concert at Moorhead, Minn., that Holly had been scheduled to play the night after he died, developed a vocal style that owed a lot to Holly's. So did Tommy Roe.

In the years since Holly's death, a long list of hit recordings has ensured that his songs will not fade away. When you think it over, few songwriters have had their work recorded by such an impressive and diverse list of artists: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Everly Brothers, Jackie DeShannon, Linda Ronstadt, Peter & Gordon, Blind Faith, Blondie, Don McLean, Phil Ochs, Carl Perkins and Waylon Jennings are only a few of the most famous to record Buddy Holly songs, some of them scoring Top 10 hits.

It's so easy to imagine what Holly might have done had he lived. The Beatles, who were just starting out when he died, would have been only too happy to have performed with him. Tapes he left behind in his apartment showed that his songwriting was taking new, more sophisticated directions. And he had begun learning the game of the music business, producing records for other artists. Almost certainly, he would have gone on to even greater success.

All of which makes the crash of that little Beechcraft Bonanza on Feb. 3, 1959, the more tragic.