Artist · chart history · #133 in indie & aaa artist polls
Buddy Holly
Solo artist Lubbock United States 1950s rock & roll singer‐songwriter
Buddy Holly is an artist from Lubbock. Buddy Holly has 21 chart appearances on 14 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 1991–2023. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Rave On”, which appears on 5 lists with a best position of #322. The station that charted Buddy Holly most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 7 appearances.
Buddy Holly, born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas, in 1936, packed a whole revolution into barely three years. He grew up in a musical family, played country and western with his friend Bob Montgomery, and switched to rock and roll after opening for Elvis Presley in 1955. A Nashville scout got him to Decca, but Owen Bradley's polished sessions didn't suit him, so he went to Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico, and cut "That'll Be the Day" his own way.
Petty got it out on Brunswick under the name the Crickets, a dodge around Decca's contract, and in September 1957 it went to the top in both the US and the UK. "Peggy Sue" followed a month later, and then came the run: "Everyday", with its music-box tinkle, the hiccupping swagger of "Rave On", "Maybe Baby", and the thumping "Not Fade Away". Two guitars, bass and drums, and a front man writing his own songs: that lineup became the template for the beat groups that followed, and the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan all learned from him.
It ended in February 1959, when a plane he had chartered out of Clear Lake, Iowa, in the middle of a midwestern tour crashed soon after takeoff, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and pilot Roger Peterson. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took him in with its first class in 1986.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Buddy Holly on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rave On | 5 | #322 | – | – | |
| 2 | That'll Be the Day | 4 | #253 | – | – | |
| 3 | Not Fade Away | 4 | #161 | – | – | |
| 4 | Everyday | 2 | #425 | – | – | |
| 5 | Peggy Sue | 2 | #397 | – | – | |
| 6 | Rockin' With Ollie Vee | 1 | #1028 | – | – | |
| 7 | Maybe Baby | 1 | #564 | – | – | |
| 8 | Weezer | 1 | #71 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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