When Bob Dylan was honored with a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, he started reflecting on how his songs related to literature. But before pointing out three definitive books that impacted him early on—Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Odyssey—he started at the beginning of his musical journey.
“If I was to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I’d have to start with Buddy Holly,” said Dylan during his Nobel Lecture in June 2017. “Buddy died when I was about 18 and he was 22. From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him.”
Dylan continued, “Buddy played the music that I loved, the music I grew up on—country western, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre. One brand. And Buddy wrote songs, songs that had beautiful melodies and imaginative verses. And he sang great, sang in more than a few voices. He was the archetype, everything I wasn’t and wanted to be.”
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Eye Contact with Buddy
A few days before the crash on February 3, 1959, which killed Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson), and pilot Roger Peterson, Dylan saw one of his early heroes perform in his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota at the National Guard Armory, January 31.
At the time Holly was on his Winter Dance Party Tour a 24-date Midwest tour with Valens and the Big Bopper, along with Dion and the Belmonts, and Frankie Sardo, and Dylan remembered every detail about his musical encounter.
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“I saw him only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone,” shared Dylan. “I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play, and I wasn’t disappointed. He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing.”
He continued, “I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than 22. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction.”
Dylan also remembers the experience of standing just a few feet away from Holly, who made eye contact with him. “Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened,” said Dylan. “He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.”
Lead Belly, Holly’s Legacy, and ‘Bob Dylan’
Holly’s death left a scar on Dylan and made him think of his mortality at such a young age. During his Nobel speech, Dylan also remembered what happened a day or two after the plane crash. Someone gave him a copy of Lead Belly’s 1940 song “Cotton Fields,” and everything changed.
“That record changed my life right then and there, transported me into a world I’d never known,” said Dylan. “It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of a sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.”
From there, Dylan held on to Holly and his earlier influences—Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, and others in folk and blues, country, and jazz—and released his debut, Bob Dylan, in 1962.
Throughout his career, Dylan has also covered plenty of Holly’s songs, from “Gotta Travel On,” “Not Fade Away,” “Heartbeat,” and more.
‘Time Out of Mind’
When the last rays of daylight go down / Buddy, you’re old no more sings Dylan on “Standing in the Doorway,” from his 1997 album Time Out of Mind. Nearly 40 years after Holly’s death, Dylan said he could feel the late rocker’s presence while making the album.
“I don’t really recall exactly what I said about Buddy Holly, but while we were recording, every place I turned there was Buddy Holly,” recalled Dylan in a 1999 interview. “It was one of those things. Every place you turned. You walked down a hallway and you heard Buddy Holly records like ‘That’ll Be the Day.’ Then you’d get in the car to go over to the studio and ‘Rave On’ would be playing. Then you’d walk into this studio and someone’s playing a cassette of ‘It’s So Easy.'”
Dylan continued, “And this would happen day after day after day. Phrases of Buddy Holly songs would just come out of nowhere. It was spooky, but after we recorded and left, it stayed in our minds. Well, Buddy Holly’s spirit must have been someplace, hastening this record.”
In 1998, Dylan won three Grammys for Time Out of Mind, including Album of the Year.
“I just have some sort of feeling that he [Holly] was, I don’t know how or why,” said Dylan during his Grammy acceptance speech, “but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
