. . . are strictly for fun; they are not high art. Even by this modest standard, however, last night's production of "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story" at Houston's Jones Hall was a big ol' . . .
. . . disappointment.
If you don't know who Buddy Holly was, look him up. He's a legendary Texas singer, songwriter, guitarist, and band leader who helped invent rock 'n' roll. He was from Lubbock, and his career lasted from the release of "That'll Be the Day" in July 1957 through his death by airplane on February 3, 1959. His string of hits is remembered with special affection by Texans of a certain age -- including Unca D -- who were turned on to music by "Peggy Sue" and other Holly songs. The charm, clarity, and simplicity of this music elevated the low-fi medium through which we listened: cheap AM radios. Mr. Holly's greatest influence, however, was on other musicians, including teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Their 1958 recording -- their first ever -- was "That'll Be the Day." And "Beatles" is an homage to Mr. Holly's band, the Crickets.
"Buddy" is a cartoon version of the true Buddy Holly story. Always has been and always will be. The book as a fact-checker's nightmare, with the wrong things happening at the wrong times and with complex events rewritten into simple falsehoods. So be it. The play's only real reason for existing is to give modern audiences a taste of what it might have been like to hear Mr. Holly's classic songs for the first time.
Friday's performance failed.
The first few minutes were so disjointed that one wondered whether the guys on the sound and lighting boards had been locked out of the control room. The music consisted of an overpowering drummer accompanied by air guitarists with the sound turned down and a singer about whom the best that can be said is that his lips were moving.
Actors who needed spotlights emoted in inky blackness. After a few minutes, the spots finally came alive but hit torsos, not heads. Sometimes the lights missed altogether and illuminated a dark corner of the stage. In a rehearsal, all this might have been understandable. In a performance, it showed an appalling lack of respect for the material and the audience.
To work, "Buddy" must be carried by a lead actor who can mimic Mr. Holly's distinctive voice and look, and who can play serious lead Stratocaster. Tapes of Buddy Holly's television appearances show a loose, gangly guy playing 'with authority, presence, and joy.
Todd Meredith -- "Buddy's" Buddy -- from Albany, New York, comes across as a decent singer, an adequate guitarist (he's thinking too hard about the licks), and the nicest possible guy. He does not come across as Buddy Holly. He's too tightly wound. He jumps around the stage, anachronistically, like a proto-Mick Jagger. Remember how the Beatles were static on stage, allowing the music to speak for itself? So was Buddy Holly. Suit. Tie. Feet planted. Music.
In this, his seventeenth production of "Buddy," Mr. Meredith knows all the words and sometimes breaks through to rough Buddyhood. But difference in the tone and timbre of his voice cannot be disguised. Belief is never willingly surrendered.
The real Buddy also had a certain spare look -- part nerd, part cowboy. Mr. Meredith, alas, looks like somebody's best friend in a fifties high-school sit-com. It's not his fault that looks nothing like Mr. Holly and lacks the acting chops to make us forget the difference. It is the producers' fault for putting him in the role.
The greatest abomination in the show, however, is the staging and orchestration of Mr. Holly's final concert in the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa, on the night of February 2, 1959. Buddy and his stand-in Crickets played for all the other acts, with Buddy sometimes sitting in on drums, sometimes on guitar.
There was no trombone. No trumpet. No girl singers. No keyboards. No shucking. No jiving. Just a bunch of talented young men knocking out righteous rock 'n' roll for an appreciative audience.
"Buddy" ruins the power of the historic event with over-production. This is how Buddy woulda done it or shoulda done it if he coulda done it.
No, no, no.
Imagine the alternative: a first-class concert by first-class musicians doing it right and lifting the audience from its seats with musicianship, not gimmicks .
And what's with "Johnny B. Goode" as the closing number? "Johnny B. Goode? That's the fault of the script, not the performers, but it's an inexplicable and unforgiveable blunder, a change in tone, a diversion from Buddy Holly to Chuck Berry, as if to say that nothing Buddy Holly wrote was quite good enough to close a show in his memory.
This thing needs to be pulled off the road and rebuilt from the ground up.
* * *
To cleanse your palate, go to these sites for some of Unca D's rather-more-honest and artful photography on the subject of Buddy Holly:
here for photographs of the Norman Petty Studios, Clovis, New Mexico, where Buddy Holly recorded most of his hits. The little keyboard is the celeste played by Vi Norman in "Everyday," and the big piano is the one on "Think It Over";
here for photos of the excellent Vi & Norman Petty Museum of Rock & Roll in Clovis;
here for photos of the not-so-excellent Buddy Holly statue in Lubbock; and
here for 68-year-old Unca's surprisingly good photos (for a point-and-shoot camera) of 72-year-old Paul McCartney's concert of October 2, 2014, in Lubbock, featuring a nod of respect from Mr. McCartney to Buddy Holly.
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