That'll be the day: When Buddy Holly and the Crickets bowled Yorkshire over

Almost 60 years ago this week, the most influential figure in the history of popular music, Buddy Holly, was killed in a tragic plane crash on an internal flight from Mason City, Iowa, to Fargo, North Dakota.

The 1959 crash also claimed the lives of singers Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, J.P. Richardson, and brought to an end an incredible 18-month career for the 22-year-old from Lubbock, Texas, whose legacy is still being felt.

Less than a year before his death, Buddy Holly had played eight concerts at four venues across Yorkshire as part of a long British tour. Also in the show were Des O’Connor, billed as ‘the comedian with the modern style’, The Turner Sisters, Ronnie Keene and His Orchestra, and crooner Gary Miller, who had a big hit with the song The Story of My Life.

But for the thousands of fans who filed through the doors at the Gaumont Theatres in Bradford and Doncaster, Sheffield City Hall and the Regal Cinema in Hull, the only act that mattered was Buddy Holly and his band, the Crickets.

Denis Jones, a young miner from Castleford, was one of the teenagers who filled Sheffield City Hall on March 4, 1958, for Holly’s first ever show in Yorkshire, and the experience has gone on to shape the former rugby league professional’s life.

“Buddy Holly has had a massive influence on me as a person and as a musician,” said Mr Jones. “He was just incredible, and what he did changed the music world forever: he was the first person to have his own ‘self-contained’ band, he introduced new recording techniques and his songwriting ability was something no person of his age had ever produced before.

“Buddy also showed to the world that you didn’t have to be an Adonis to front a band: he was no Elvis, just an ordinary kid in glasses from Texas but the girls all loved him.

“I used to stand in front of the mirror at home wearing a pair of black framed glasses with no glass in pretending to be Buddy.”

Mr Jones has fond memories of the concert at Sheffield, where he was living whilst completing an apprenticeship with the National Coal Board.

“I think my mate got us tickets, which were like gold dust,” he recalled. “The set was fantastic, he played all the hits they’d had up to that point and some songs that would go on to become all-time classics.

“It was all so new, so fresh. I stood there transfixed by what I was hearing, and by the sight of Buddy’s guitar: a Fender Stratocaster, which no-one here had seen before.

“Afterward I used to go into Leeds and stand with my nose pressed to the window looking at a Fender Stratocaster going round on a display carousel. It might as well have cost £1 million, I couldn’t afford it.”

Mr Jones did go on to own Fender Stratocasters but the guitar didn’t suit his style of playing - “I’m a Fender Telecaster man,” he said - but Buddy Holly has continued to play an important role in his life.

For much of the last 50 years, Mr Jones has played guitar in bands at venues across Yorkshire and beyond, and Buddy Holly hits such as It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, Peggy Sue, Maybe Baby and That’ll Be The Day have always featured in his repertoire.

Mr Jones is the long-time frontman of the Collier Dixon Line, a four-piece band on which the influence of Buddy Holly and American country singers is clear.

“There had never been anyone like Buddy Holly before, and I don’t think there has been anyone to touch him since,” added Mr Jones. “I’m 74 years old now and I’m still trying to be like Buddy Holly!”

The Collier Dixon Line are the resident band at the George V Working Men’s Club in Castleford and perform every other Monday: their next performance is on Monday February 8.