How to go
What: “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story”
Where: Clark State Performing Arts Center, Kuss Auditorium, 300 South Fountain Ave., Springfield
When: 8 p.m. next Friday, Feb. 20
Cost: $45, $40, $35; $10 off student tickets and group discounts available
More info: 937-328-3874 or go to www.clarkstate.edu/about-clark-state/performing-arts-center
He couldn’t have looked less like a rock ’n’ roll star — skinny with big glasses and a sort of awkward presence. But when he strapped on his guitar, oh boy, Buddy Holly defined the energy and excitement of rock’s early days.
“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” is a two-act jukebox musical that depicts his rise from aspiring country music singer to rock and roll pioneer and star to his untimely death in 1959, punctuated by rousing concert re-creations.
The Springfield Arts Council presentation of “Buddy” will be 8 p.m. next Friday, Feb. 20, at the Clark State Performing Arts Center.
“I like to think of it as a play with lots of music, a musical biography of a high-energy but tragically short career,” said co-producer Steve Steiner. “This is the true beginning of rock and roll.”
The show began in 1989 in London’s West End, where Holly has a huge following, coming to Broadway in 1990 and continuing across the world.
Holly’s classic songs include “That’ll Be the Day,” “Peggy Sue,” “Every Day,” “Oh Boy” and “Rave On.”
Steiner said one of Holly’s rock moves was to use downstrokes on his guitar when others were only using upstrokes, resulting in simple but catchy melodies that have made the songs timeless and covered often by other rockers.
Sadly, Holly also made history as rock’s first great tragedy, dying in a plane crash with fellow musicians Ritchie Valens (“La Bamba”) and J.P. Richardson, better known as The Big Bopper (“Chantilly Lace”), also represented in the 12-member cast.
Steiner was 8 years old at the time and remembers hearing the news on the radio in his mother’s kitchen. He confessed he was most distressed then about the loss of The Big Bopper.
“I didn’t realize then that I’d go into musical theater or what a musical genius Buddy was. We can only imagine where he’d have gone as a musician and producer.”
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