Buddy Holly was an American Hall of Fame singer/guitarist/songwriter of Peggy Sue, Maybe Baby, Everyday, Oh Boy! and That'll Be the Day fame.

Full or original name at birth: Charles Hardin Holley*

Date and place of birth: September 7, 1936, at 1911 6th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.

Date, time, place and cause of death: February 3, 1959, at 1:03 a.m., near Clear Lake, Iowa, U.S.A. (Plane crash) **

Marriage
Wife: Maria Elena Santiago (m. August 15, 1958 - February 3, 1959) (his death)
Wedding took place at the Holley family home at 1606 39th Street, Lubbock, Texas, with Ben Johnson of the Tabernacle Baptist Church officiating.

Family/Relatives
Siblings: Larry Ormand Holley (b. October 7, 1925, Lubbock, Texas)
Travis Holley (b. 1927, Vernon, Texas) (brothers)

Patricia Lou Holley (b. March 7, 1929, Lubbock, Texas) (sister)

Parents
Father: Lawrence Odell Holley (known as L.O. Holley) (b. November 4, 1901, Harmon, Lamar County, Texas - d. July 8, 1985, at approximately 8 p.m., West Texas Hospital, Lubbock, Texas, of a stroke)
Mother: Ella Pauline Drake (b. August 29, 1902 - d. May 20, 1990, Lubbock, Texas)

Burial site: City of Lubbock Cemetery, 2011 East 31st Street, Lubbock, Texas

NOTE: "2011 E. 34th Street" is erroneously reported as the address of the cemetery by many sources.

* Several sources offer the misspelling "Charles Hardin Holly" as his name at birth. The spelling change from Holley to Holly didn't take place until he received his first recording contract from Decca Records in 1956. They had inadvertently spelled his last name "Holly" and he kept it that way for the remainder of his career. Also, the 1958 marriage announcement that appeared in the local Lubbock newspaper misspelled his name "Buddy Charles Halley." Some editions of Chase's Calendar of Events misspell Buddy's middle name "Harden."

** Some sources mistakenly list "Mason City, Iowa" as his place of death. Although this is where the plane took off, the crash took place closer to Clear Lake, Iowa.

In reference to the popular, critically-acclaimed 1978 film, The Buddy Holly Story, his brother Larry Holley reports, "That movie was completely erroneous."

In addition to Gary Busey's 1978 The Buddy Holly Story, his story was also told in the stage play, Buddy, which had a successful run on London's West End. The musical found its way to the Shubert Theatre on Broadway in 1990, but closed the next year.

Buddy Holly opened for Elvis Presley on more than one occasion, and they became friends. Elvis was also the catalyst for Buddy's shift from rockabilly to Rock & Roll. The talented singer/songwriter had smash hits with both his band, The Crickets, and as a solo artist.

The plane in which Buddy Holly and fellow singers Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed, was a single engine, four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza. Investigations showed the plane was properly maintained, and in good operating order at the time of the crash. The Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the probable cause of the accident, ". . . was the pilot's unwise decision to embark on a flight which would necessitate flying solely by instruments when he was not properly certificated or qualified to do so. Contributing factors were serious deficiencies in the weather briefing, and the pilot's unfamiliarity with the instrument which determines the attitude of the aircraft."

Buddy Holly was part of the initial group of music pioneers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. The inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, January 23rd, 1986. Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Elvis Presley, were among his fellow inductees that year. That fact alone speaks volumes as to his prominent place in music history.

In 1993, the U.S. Postal Service officially released a First-Class stamp honoring Buddy Holly as part of their Legends of American Music stamp series.

Selected singing credits:
Blue Days, Black Nights (1956)
Early in the Morning (1958)
Everyday (1957)
Fool's Paradise (1958)
Girl On My Mind (1958)
Heartbeat (1958)
I'm Gonna Love You Too (1958)
I'm Looking For Someone To Love (1957)
It's So Easy (1958)
Listen To Me (1958)
Lonesome Tears (1958)
Love Me (originally released in 1956)
Maybe Baby (1958)
Modern Don Juan (1956)
Not Fade Away (1957)
Now We're One (1958)
Oh Boy! (1957)
Peggy Sue (1957)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1959)
Rave On (1958)
Rock Around With Ollie Vee (1957)
Take Your Time (1958)
Tell Me How (1958)
That'll Be the Day (1957)
Think It Over (1958)
Ting-A-Ling (1958)
Well, All Right (1958)
Words Of Love (1957)
You Are My One Desire (originally released in 1956)

Selected songwriting credits:
Everyday
It's So Easy
Peggy Sue
Peggy Sue Got Married
That'll Be the Day
True Love Ways

Selected TV guest appearances:
American Bandstand
The Ed Sullivan Show

Education:
Roscoe Wilson Elementary School
Roosevelt School
Hutchinson Junior High
Lubbock High School (Graduated May 27th, 1955)

Hobbies/sidelines:
Waterskiing, boating, horseback riding, woodworking, karate, fishing, hunting, and he was also taking flying lessons to become a private pilot.

Residences of Buddy Holly:
Note that these residences may no longer exist, and it's possible the addresses have changed over the years. This is not to suggest that Buddy Holly owned each and every one of these structures. We're only reporting the fact that he resided in them at one point or another in his life.

1911 6th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
3315 36th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
3204 1st Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
1906 24th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
1305 37th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
1606 39th Street, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.A.
Brevoort Apartments, 11 Fifth Avenue at 9th St., Apartment 4H, Greenwich Village, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

The most in-depth of more than three dozen sources consulted in preparing this profile, was the 1995 book, Buddy Holly: A Biography, by Ellis Amburn.

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