James Taylor - Not Fade Away

So today's song is a little different. The coolest thing for me was that little Jack was moving all around inside Laurette when this song was playing. I think after Paul Simon (post coming later) and now this song it is safe to say for sure this kid is going to have my love for music.

Another great thing about this song is that it is a cover. When a band or an artist chooses to cover a song it can go really really good or really really bad.

"Not Fade Away" was written and recorded by the great Buddy Holly. If any of you are like me for many years I just thought of Holly as that guy with funny glasses and would sometimes get him confused with Roy Orbison..again another guy with funny glasses. There is still much for me to learn about Buddy Holly and his band The Crickets, but the longer we live in Nashville and the more trips to Roberts Western World (the best damn Honky Tonk in the world!) and the Country Music Hall of Fame, the more I understand the magnitude of Holly's influence on Country, Blues and Rock and Roll music.

He was only 22 when he died in an awful plane crash with two other great artists of their day, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. The crash was the subject of Don McLean's American Pie. The song that Madonna just butchered in the link above.

In his 22 years he recorded three albums, was one of the first artist to write, produce and perform his own songs and has been sited as a major influence in the careers of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and any one musician worth a damn in the last 50 years. Remember also that Buddy Holly's international career only lasted maybe 2 years at best and he was still able to make this kind of impact on people.

The reason I love this song is because it has a simple Bo Diddley beat.. another artist that Jack will be hearing soon. You can't help but tap your foot to the guitar riff and the lyrics are simple and to the point. When you tell a woman that your love is bigger then Cadillac, I think she gets it..especially those colossal 1950's model caddy's.

And since this song was a cover another fun part was discovering on YouTube, just how many covers of this song exist including a jammed out Grateful Dead version, a very high pitched Tom Petty version, and a Bruce Springsteen version from way back in the day....see even in 1978 he was a little pretentious. BRUUUUUUUCE

My favorite has to be this really old version below from 1964 by The Rolling Stones. Last year Buddy Holly's band The Crickets were inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame here in Nashville. Keith Richards thought the evening was so important that he threw on a suit, found his best pairs of trinkets or whatever the heck it is he puts in his hair and came to our fine city to present the honor and jam with the band onstage. He said during his speech mumbling that there would be no Rolling Stones without Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

It is amazing to think that such a legendary bands like the Stones and the Beatles were once upon a time just kids that loved to play American rock and roll and listen to Buddy Holly & The Crickets records.

Even the great Bob Dylan couldn't help but seem like a little bubbling teenager when it comes to icons and their music. Here is what he had to say during a 1998 Grammy acceptance speech...
And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him...and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.

The importance of Buddy Holly on our music today could be the subject of a much, much longer entry, but let's just say that there is a reason he was one of the first picked to be added into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.


(side note - watch Mick's little leg jive at the 0:55 mark and listen to the crowds reaction)

I wanna tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your love to me
I'm gonna love you night and day
Love is love and not fade away

Well love is love and not fade away
And my love is bigger than a Cadillac
I'll try to show it if you drive me back

Your love for me has got to be real
Before you'd have noticed how I feel
Love real not fade away
Well love real not fade away

I wanna tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your love to me
Love that lasts more than one day
Well love is love and not fade away