The Pretender

January 20, 2012

"There’s a line in Scripture that says a grain of wheat doesn’t bear fruit until it dies and takes seed. Buddy Holly and the Crickets created the form—guitars, bass and drums—that every rock band after him, the Beatles, Stones and all the rest, followed. They wrote and performed their own songs like he did and his music is still being played today. And that tour, it gave seed to a new generation. Bobby Vee was a 16-year-old kid who filled in for Buddy at the next gig in Moorhead, Minn. We got to know each other and we always kept in touch after that. When Bob Dylan broke big, Bobby Vee told me that his piano player that night was Dylan, who was 18 and still known as Bob Zimmerman. [Mr. Dylan’s spokesman said: “Bob says it’s so.”] He had been in the audience for one or two of the Winter Dance Party shows and now he was on the stage with Bobby Vee, standing in for Buddy Holly. Bobby told me Dylan played so loud he couldn’t hear himself sing; he said you couldn’t control the guy; it was like someone let him out of a cage."

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