REVIEW: Buddy certainly keeps the feet tapping!

Having played to packed audiences in London’s West End at the Victoria Palace and later the Strand Theatre between October 1989 and March 2002, the hit musical takes us back to early days of rock ‘n’ roll and to one of its most charismatic artists, Buddy Holly.

A worldwide phenomenon, the show returned to the West End for an 18-month run on the 50th anniversary of Holly’s untimely death in February 1959 when the pop world declared it: ‘The Day the Music Died’, those lyrics later reworked by Don McLean and was the basis of his 1971 classic hit, American Pie.

Born in Texas in 1936, Charles Hardin Holley (he later dropped the ‘e’), was a singer-songwriter whose music is still as popular today as it was when he was so tragically killed at the age of just 22.

Following a concert at Clear Lake in Iowa in the freezing Mid West, he foregoes the long, cold coach ride and charters a single-engined four-seater aircraft in which to fly to the next concert in North Dakota. But the inexperienced pilot crashes after taking off in a snowstorm and it not only killed Holly and pilot Roger Peterson, but fellow performers Ritchie Vallens and Jiles Perry ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson whose own signature songs also feature in the musical.

The show – which has been dubbed a jukebox show! – runs for two and a half hours and is perhaps the ultimate tribute act.

I’m now 64 and his musical legacy was part of my own pre-teen years while todahy my own grandchildren know all the words to songs like Heartbeat, That’ll Be the Day and Maybe Baby.

Holly was one of pop’s most recognisable faces with his black-rimmed glasses which he refusd to take off on stage. Playing Buddy on the current tour is the highly-talented Glen Joseph who has already picked up a Sir John Gieldgud Award for his performance in the title role.

His guitar mastery was superb, the chord leads played on his sunburst finished Fender Stratocaster complemented by the black Fender Telecaster of his backing rhythm guitarist and excellent bass and drum playing antics of The Crickets.

The show opens in Holly’s home town of Lubbock, Texas back in January 1956 where the local radio station KDAV churns out an endless stream of country and western music.

Holly and his sidekicks (later to become The Crickets) follow the Hayriders on air and are introduced by DJ Hipockets Duncan (Gary Trainor). But they abandon the classic Rose of Texas mid-song and burst into the rocking number Rip It Up which angers the station’s traditional pop jock who threatens to ban them for all time.

However a string of phone calls to the radio station suggest that it’s the kind of music that the listeners want to hear and, together with drummer Jerry Allison (Tom Millen) and bass player Joe Mauldin (Christopher Redmond), lead guitarist Holly ends up with Decca Records deal.

He says he isn’t interested in if his ‘band’ aren’t included and after various scenes in his bedroom, at Decca Recording Studios and later at Clovis, New Mexico where he impresses song-writer and record produced Norman Petty (Gavin Barnes), a rhythm guitarist is added and a string of memorable hits emerge.

That’ll Be The Day tops the US charts, Everyday is tweaked by Petty wife Vi (Katia Sartini) on the piano while Not Fade Away (later a huge hit for the Rolling Stones), Peggy Sue – which started out as Cindy Lou! – Oh Boy and Words of Love are all smashes.

Throw in Chuck Berry’s Brown Eyed Hansome Man and Johnny B Goode and you’ve got a fantastic back catalogue of foot-tapping numbers, the Buddy Holly story – which was written and produced back in 1998 by Alan James – is a surefire hit.

The second act takes us to a music publishers where Holly meets his future Spanish speaking wife Marie Elena Santiago. He proposes after barely five hours and they later marry. And the scene where Holly’s acoustic rendition of True Love Ways sung to his young and now pregnant bride is a poignant highlight, Glen Joseph’s voice and finger-style guitar playing bringing the house down.

The scenes at the Apollo Theatre in New York’s Harleem District – where Buddy and The Crickets are mistaken for a black group – are show real stoppers all thanks to the antics of Meliss Kayes and Miguel Angel (who later superbly plays Ritchie Vallens).

Following a split with The Crickets, Holly falls on financially hard times and while a new band is formed, they go on a whistle stop tour taking in state after state.

However the story concludes at the Winter Dance Party at Clear Lake in Iowa where a further string of memorable hits are belted out including Heartbeat, Raining in My Heart, Peggy Sue Got Married, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, It’s So Easy and Rave On.

But the lights go out and music suddenly stops and all that’s left on stage under a spotlight is Holly’s acoustic guitar, the narrator annoucing that he has been killed in a tragic plane crash, the date February 3, 1959, barely two years after he burst onto the music scene.

But it’s not over as the band strikes up with more Holly classics; the playing, vocals and backing making the lyrics and music seem as fresh today as they did when first heard them back in 1957 after tuning my little transistor into Radio Luxembourg. They also say that you can always remember where you were when tragedy happens. I was 12 and was fishing!

The undoubted stars are Glen Joseph (who alternate with Roger Rowley) in the lead role, Steve Dorsett, a larger than life Big Bopper (singing Chantilly Lace) while Miguel Angel’s rousing La Bamba had the audience on their feet. But it was Melissa Keyes’ wonderful character acting as a sassy Apollo hostess and as a no-nonsense secretary which brought the biggest laughs.

Try to catch Buddy before it closes on Saturday. If you do then I guarantee you’ll come out humming Heartbeat or one of the other songs in that for me made it a cracking and nostalgic night out.

Future Buddy theatre dates and venues: Monday, October 24 to Saturday, October 29, Hexagon Theatre, Reading.

Monday, October 31 to Saturday, November 5 Grimsby Auditorium, Grimsby.

Monday, November 14 to Saturday, Novvember 19, New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham.

Monday, November 28 to Saturday, December 3, Liverpool Empire Theatre, Liverpool.