Song of the Week: "Tell Me How", Buddy Holly and the Crickets

Listen - Buddy Holly and the Crickets perform Tell Me How

Seventy five years ago today, Charles Holly Hardin was born. We know him better, of course, as Buddy Holly. The singer, guitarist, songwriter died at the stunningly young age of 22. In that glimmer of time the bespectacled young man from the dusty ranch town of Lubbock, Texas, wrote and recorded one of the most impressive libraries of music of any composer, regardless of age.

Try as I may, my words would of course fail to honor the man appropriately, so I will let his music stand on its own merits. Here is his own composition from 1957, Tell Me How. He wrote and recorded this at the age of 20.

Happy Birthday, Buddy.

Song of the Week: "No Friend of Mine", The Sparkles

Listen - The Sparkles perform No Friend of Mine

Lubbock is, of course, home to one of the all time greats, Buddy Holly. But the west-Texas town produced another great band that actually started playing the same time as Holly and his Crickets, The Sparkles.

The Sparkles changed line-ups a bazillion times. It was the 1967 line-up that drove to the same Clovis, New Mexico studio that Buddy Holly recorded his stuff at to record their original song (written by their manager), No Friend of Mine. The song was released on the eclectic Hickory Records label. No Friend of Mine is one crazy, snarly song with classic "don't dare me" styled lyrics. Many of which are, shall we say, hard to decipher. But whatever they are, they are telling the listener that they are not going to stand around and pull their hair out, because, woman, you ain't no friend of theirs.

Side note, Pittsburgh's king of snarl, The Swamp Rats, actually covered this song and released it as a single the same year. It's also a great version.