THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
SENSATIONALISM SELLS. Or so the team in charge of promoting Ellis Amburn's new biography of Buddy Holly seems to believe. Press handouts for the book lead with breathless claims of new material sure to shatter the clean-cut Texas rocker's image and call into question the conventional wisdom about his death, at 22, in a 1959 plane crash that also killed Ritchie ``La Bamba'' Valens and J.P. ``The Big Bopper'' Richardson.
Unfortunately, Amburn can't bolster such claims for ``Buddy Holly: A Biography'' (St. Martin's, 422 pp., $24.95) with anything fresh or convincing. The handful of paragraphs describing Holly's supposed involvement in sexual games on tour draws mostly on tales told out of school by Little Richard in his 1984 autobiography. As for any sinister activity behind the crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, Amburn offers half-baked rumors.
All of which leaves ``Buddy Holly'' to stand or fall on its merits as a life of the great Texas singer/guitarist. While Amburn's effort can't be wholly deemed a failure, neither is it a triumph.
Here, the best observations on the music come from other critics, notably Jonathan Cott, who contributed a groundbreaking 1970s essay on Holly to ``The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll.'' Amburn himself over-analyzes the music, implying meaning that Holly probably never intended.
Amburn's excesses also spill over into his writing style. Hackneyed phrases punctuate most pages. A favorite is his metaphorical description of how a musical arrangement ``explodes like a string of firecrackers.''
To his credit, Amburn occasionally harnesses his fire and achieves some exciting moments. The sections on the duplicitous business practices of Holly record producer/ manager Norman Petty are especially good, as is the author's cogent argument that the resulting financial mess made the 1959 tour necessary, leading directly to Holly's crash.
Neither does Amburn spare the incompetent, mean-spirited booking agency responsible for Holly's last tour, the ``Winter Dance Party.'' Inattentive to basic needs such as a warm bus, the agency all but put Holly and friends on a light plane piloted by an unqualified 21-year-old Roger Peterson in bad weather.
The chapters on posthumous activity surrounding Holly are loaded with detail. Fans will marvel at the popularity Holly has sustained nearly 40 years after his death.
``Buddy Holly Lives'' began as a marketing slogan in the mid-'70s, emblazoning buttons and even the cover of the ``20 Golden Greats'' album. Today it still seems true. MEMO: Rickey Wright is a staff writer specializing in pop music and culture.
by CNB