A Consideration of The Buddy Holly Stamp

**This Buddy Holly stamp is a part of the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my hub page dedicated to this long-running and important project of the United States Postal Service.

The Legends of American Music series ostensibly began with the release of the famous Elvis Presley stamp in January of 1993. However, that was simply a stand alone stamp. The Elvis stamp was a juggernaut, selling more than 500 million copies. It was only on June 16th of 1993 when the set of seven Rock & Roll and Rhythm & Blues stamps came out that things the series really started.

Buddy Holly

The musician known as Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936 in Lubbock, Texas. “Buddy” was his nickname from childhood. Holly was from a musical family and began piano lessons at the age of eleven. After a few months, he gave up the piano, but switched to playing the guitar.

Holly’s earliest musical influences were country musicians such as Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, and the Carter Family. He listened to radio programs such as the Grand Ole Opry and the Big D Jamboree. At the age of sixteen, Holly and his partner Jack Neal were on a talent competition on a local television station. This led to a regular gig on the station and to further live performances. It was then that Holly discovered and fell in love with Rhythm and Blues music, listening to distant radio stations in his car.

Holly formed his own band after graduating high school in 1955. After attending a concert of Elvis Presley in Lubbock, Holly decided to pursue music as a full-time professional career. Holly even opened for Elvis twice during his short career.

Holly signed with Decca records in 1956, but had an unsuccessful and unsatisfactory experience. After leaving the label, Holly discovered that he was unable to re-record some of the songs he had recorded with Decca under his own name. To get around this, he formed a group called The Crickets and released it through Brunswick Records in New York City. This led to his first successful song, “That’ll Be the Day,” in 1957. Following this, Holly had several other hit songs including “Peggy Sue” and “Everyday.” This led to performances on the Ed Sullivan Show and soon Holly was in demand as a performer across the country.

The Day the Music Died

Buddy Holly joined forces with several other musicians including Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” and “Dion and the Belmonts” for a “Winter Dance Party” tour through the midwest in January of 1959. The tour began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on January 23, 1959. Subsequent stops included Kenosha and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Mankato and St. Paul, Minnesota, and Davenport and Fort Dodge, Iowa. On February 2, the Winter Dance Party had a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, but the next day they were scheduled to perform in Moorhead, Minnesota, 365 miles away. After many long days on the bus, Holly decided to charter a plane to take him and anyone else from the tour who wanted a quicker trip to North Dakota.

The plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper,” took off from the Mason City, Iowa, airport at 12:55 am on Tuesday, February 3. The plane was hardly in the air before it crashed, less than six miles northwest of the airport, killing everyone on board. The tragic event killed several of the most promising musicians of the era and would later be dubbed “The Day the Music Died,” by Don McLean in his 1971 song “American Pie.”

The Stamp

The Buddy Holly stamp was the design of Mark Stutzman. He was also the designer of the Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Ritche Valens stamps that were also in the Rock & Roll and Rhythm & Blues set. The stamp was sold along with the others in the series in sheets of thirty-five and booklets of thirty.

In other places, I have mentioned that I don’t care for the cartoon-like quality of this set of stamps, however I think that the Buddy Holly stamp is perhaps the most successful one of the set. His likeness is less caricature-esque than some of the others, and I like the active position of him turning over his left shoulder and peering over the headstock of his guitar.

The Legends series was an important step forward for the United States recognizing the importance of its popular music culture and Buddy Holly is well-deserving of his place among other early legends of Rock & Roll.

Learn more about the tragic event that took Buddy Holly and other early rock and rollers from the world too soon.