What Was Buddy Holly's Net Worth?
Buddy Holly was an American musician and singer-songwriter who had a net worth equal to $1 million at the time of his death in 1959. Buddy Holly is considered a pioneer of rock and roll music, but his success only lasted about a year and a half before his tragic accident. He has been called the "single most influential creative force in early rock and roll" and has been cited as an inspiration for musicians such as Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. Holly was ranked #13 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" list in 2004. Buddy founded the band The Crickets, who had a hit single with "That'll Be the Day" and set the template for rock and roll bands to come. They released the album "The "Chirping" Crickets" in 1957, and Holly followed it with a self-titled solo album and the Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes album "That'll Be the Day" in 1958. Buddy's most popular singles include "Peggy Sue," "Oh Boy!," "Maybe Baby," "Heartbeat," and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore." He has been portrayed in many films, most notably in an Academy Award-nominated performance by Gary Busey in 1978's "The Buddy Holly Story." Buddy passed away on February 3, 1959, at the age of 22 in an airplane crash that also claimed the lives of musicians Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson.
Early Life
Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. He was the son of Ella Pauline Drake and Lawrence Odell "L.O." Holley, and he had three older siblings, Larry, Travis, and Patricia. Holly earned the nickname "Buddy" as a child, and his ancestry was Welsh, Irish, and Native American. He grew up in a Baptist household, and the family attended the Tabernacle Baptist Church, where Holly's wedding and funeral would later take place. The Holleys were a musical family, and Buddy briefly took piano lessons at the age of 11 before switching to guitar. Holly's parents bought him his first guitar, and his brother Travis taught him how to play it. Buddy attended Roscoe Wilson Elementary, where he met Bob Montgomery. He and Bob began playing music together, and they eventually formed the musical duo Buddy and Bob. Holly graduated from Lubbock High School in 1955 and decided to pursue a music career full-time. In 1955, he opened for Elvis Presley several times, and he added Larry Welborn (stand-up bass) and his high school friend Jerry Allison (drums) to his band. Buddy opened for Bill Haley & His Comets in October 1955, and Nashville scout Eddie Crandall was impressed with his performance. Holly and his band signed with Decca Records in February 1956, and in the contract, Buddy's last name was spelled "Holly" instead of "Holley." After releasing a few singles that didn't do well, including "Blue Days, Black Nights" and "Modern Don Juan," Decca declined to renew Buddy's contract.
Career
After Decca dropped the band, Holly and Allison teamed up with rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan and bassist Joe B. Mauldin and recorded a demo of the song "That'll Be the Day" at the studio of producer Norman Petty, who later became Buddy's manager. Petty sent the demo to Brunswick Records, which released it under the name The Crickets with "I'm Looking for Someone to Love" as the B-side. The single, which was released in May 1957, reached #1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart and #2 on the "Billboard" Rhythm & Blues chart. The band released the album "The "Chirping" Crickets" in November 1957, and it peaked at #5 on the UK Albums Chart. In 2012, "Rolling Stone" ranked the album #420 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time." In September 1957, the single "Peggy Sue / "Everyday," from Buddy's forthcoming solo album, was released, and it reached #3 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and Rhythm & Blues charts and #6 on the UK Singles Chart. Holly's self-titled solo album was released in March 1958, and "Peggy Sue" ended up being one of "Billboard's" top 50 pop singles of 1958, coming in at #50.
In April 1958, Holly released the album "That'll Be the Day" under the name Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes, and it reached #5 on the UK Albums Chart. Shortly after Buddy's death in February 1959, the compilation album "The Buddy Holly Story" was released, and it was certified Gold and reached #2 on the UK Albums Chart and #11 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. It was followed by "The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2" in April 1960, and it peaked at #41 in the U.S. and #7 in the U.K. Several singles were released from those compilation albums, with "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" topping the UK singles chart and "Think It Over" and "Heartbeat" / "Well… All Right" becoming top 10 hits on the "Billboard" Rhythm & Blues chart. Buddy recorded so much music during his short career that his record label was able to release new singles and albums for a decade after his death. Most of these releases were produced by Norman Petty, who drew upon amateur recordings, unreleased studio masters, audition tapes, and alternate takes. The 1969 album "Giant" was the final "new" album of Holly's material, and it reached #13 on the UK Albums Chart.
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Personal Life
Buddy married María Elena Santiago, a receptionist at Peermusic, on August 15, 1958, less than six months before his tragic death. Holly asked Santiago to marry him during their first date, and they wed less than two months later at Lubbock's Tabernacle Baptist Church. Buddy named his publishing company Maria Music in her honor. More than 50 years after Holly's death, Santiago and Peter Bradley co-founded the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation to "honor Buddy Holly's tremendous legacy and to fulfill Buddy's and María Elena's dream of extending musical education, including songwriting, production, arranging, orchestration, and performance education to new generations regardless of income or ethnicity or learning levels."
Death
In January 1959, Buddy embarked on the Winter Dance Party tour with a band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Carl Bunch, and Tommy Allsup. The band had problems with the unheated tour buses they were traveling on, and Bunch ended up in the hospital with frostbitten toes, so Holly chartered a small plane to take Allsup, Jennings, and himself from Clear Lake, Iowa, to Moorhead, Minnesota. Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) ended up on the plane instead of Jennings and Allsup, and pilot Roger Peterson took off after the Clear Lake show in inclement weather. Sadly, the plane crashed in an Iowa cornfield just before 1:00 a.m. on February 3, 1959, killing everyone onboard. Buddy was just was just 22 years old. His funeral took place at Lubbock's Tabernacle Baptist Church on February 7th, and he was laid to rest in the City of Lubbock Cemetery. His headstone features musical notes and a carving of his signature Fender Stratocaster guitar.
Holly's wife, María Elena, found out about his death on television and suffered a miscarriage the following day. Buddy's mother collapsed after hearing the news of his death on the radio. Due to María Elena's miscarriage, authorities reportedly implemented a policy that prevented victims' names from being announced until after their families have been informed. Holly's widow didn't attend his funeral and hasn't visited his grave. She told the "Avalanche-Journal," "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."
Awards and Honors
Holly was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1986), and the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame (2000). He was honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Grammys and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1997, and he received a star on the Music City Walk Of Fame in 2007 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011. In 1980, a statue of Buddy was erected at Lubbock's West Texas Walk of Fame, and the Buddy Holly Center opened in Lubbock in 1999, followed by the Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences in 2021.
