Beef & Boards’ uncanny ability to attract actors that can not only act, look and sound the part, but play the instruments puts its current production “Buddy — the Buddy Holly Story” on my list of all-time favorite Beef & Boards shows.
Kyle Jurassic as Buddy Holly not only plays the guitar, but has mastered Holly’s trademark hiccup vocals as well. Josh McElmore as Holly’s bass player Jerry Allison not only plays the bass, but can do so while Jurassic climbs all over it during concert performances. And no one on stage could possibly be having as much fun as Chuck Caruso as the Big Bopper. Although he doesn’t play an instrument, his “Hellooooooo, Baaaa-by” is spot on.
I may have said this in previous reviews, but it’s true: Beef & Boards is at its best with these musical bio-pics. In 2017, “Ring of Fire” highlighted the career of Johnny Cash; in 2018, “The Million Dollar Quartet” brought Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis to life for the one fateful moment when all four were in the recording studio together. “Buddy” recounts the short but impactful life of early rock ‘n’ roll star Buddy Holly.
The audience of mostly baby-boomers obviously enjoyed the show, tapping their feet on the floor or hands on the tables as the recognized the songs from Holly’s catalogue of hits.
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The show covers Buddy’s musical start, as he and the Crickets play live in the studio at radio station KDAV in Holly’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas. Holly argues with disc jockey Hipockets Duncan (John Vessels), as Duncan tries to force him to play country tunes when Holly wants to play rock ‘n’ roll.
He finally gets to play the music he wants to play and attracts the attention of an agent and record producer. He records albums in Nashville and New Mexico before becoming the first white act to ever play Harlem’s famous Apollo Theater in 1957.
He recorded his final album, which included the hit “That’ll Be the Day,” in 1958. But as the show moves closer to that fateful night in February, 1959, the action seems to move into slow motion. Not a failure of the performers, but because the audience seems to will time to slow down.
“Buddy — the Buddy Holly Story” so totally captures the times, Holly’s personality and energy and the upward trajectory of his rise to stardom. We know as we watch Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens (Edward LaCardo) sing their hits in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, that we are watching a moment where we wish time could just… stop and let us truly appreciate what we had before we have to face what we lost.
Any movie or performance based on real-life events or people always has the effect of making me want to learn more about that time and those people. “Buddy” is no different. With a little internet research, we learn that Buddy Holly was just 23 years old when he died in a plane crash, 10 minutes after take-off on Feb. 3, 1959. A short life, but a long musical legacy, his music influenced the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Elton John.
A local music historian explains it this way: “What Buddy Holly did was democratize rock ‘n’ roll. Elvis wasn’t the boy next door, Sinatra wasn’t the boy next door, but Buddy Holly was. He made it possible for every geeky-looking kid in horn-rimmed glasses to be in a rock band.”
Today, Buddy Holly is mostly remembered as the vague subject of Don McLean’s 1971 No. 1 hit “American Pie.”
“Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died…”
At Beef & Boards, the music of Buddy Holly lives on.
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“Buddy – the Buddy Holly Story” plays through Aug. 18 at Beef & Board Dinner Theatre, 9301 Michigan Road. Visit beefandboards.com for show times and ticket information.
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