Born 90 Years Ago Today, This Rock Pioneer Got His Start Opening For Elvis

If there were a Mount Rushmore of '50s rock 'n' roll, then Buddy Holly — and his iconic thick-framed glasses — would no doubt be carved into the mountain. Born 90 years ago today, the pioneering rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter got his start in the music business in high school. And on February 13, 1955, as part of the country-and-western duo Buddy and Bob (formed in his mid-teens with childhood friend Bob Montgomery), he opened for another legend on the rise: Elvis Presley, at the Fair Park Coliseum in Holly's native Lubbock, Texas.

Just 18 at the time, Holly had already been making rounds playing at local high schools and other small venues. But this was different; the crowds were much bigger, and "rock 'n' roll" — a label only recently coined in 1951 — was starting to percolate. A year before Presley broke through nationally with "Heartbreak Hotel," the headliner was touring furiously and capturing the hearts and dancing shoes of a growing teenage fan base. In Lubbock that evening, the King also did Holly a solid and lent him his Martin guitar for the set. The fans couldn't have known then that this was a meeting of giants and icons; they couldn't have known that this fateful concert would become an integral part of the story of rock 'n' roll's mid-century rise.

Buddy and Bob would go on to open for Elvis Presley a couple more times that year, and those early appearances helped Buddy Holly score his first recording contract with Decca Records. Without that early recognition, who knows if we'd ever hear Buddy Holly & the Crickets classics like "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue?" No doubt, these songs remind older boomers of their first high school dance, and they're absolutely load-bearing for rock 'n' roll. And because Holly — unlike Presley or most performers in the music industry at the time — wrote or co-wrote his own songs, he was ahead of his time, presaging the era of rock singer-songwriters. 

Holly's career was tragically cut short within four years of his opening for Presley. In 1959, while on the Winter Dance Party tour, a plane carrying Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) went down shortly after departing from Clear Lake, Iowa; there were no survivors. As immortalized in the 1971 Don McLean song "American Pie," it was forever known as "the day the music died." Before the losses of John Lennon or Kurt Cobain rattled the world, it was Buddy Holly's death at just 22 that shook American teenagers and music fans to the core.

But before Holly's brief but sterling career and subsequent tragedy, there was one fateful evening in Texas with Presley. Likely, neither musician realized just how significant it was, but looking back, it's clear that the stars were aligning.