Over the ensuing decades, Allison also became an in-demand session player, recording with such artists as Bobby Vee, Eddie Cochran, Waylon Jennings, Paul McCartney and Nanci Griffith. “More Than I Can Say,” a 1960 Crickets single co-written by Allison and Curtis, later became a No. The Big Bopper), Allison continued recording and touring as The Crickets with a rotating cast of band members including Mauldin, Sonny Curtis, Glen Hardin, Earl Sinks and Jerry Naylor. 68 on the Billboard singles chart.įollowing Holly’s death in a plane crash in February 1959 alongside fellow rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Ritchie Valens and J.P. Songs similar to Real Wild Child (Wild One) by Jerry Lee Lewis, such as Susie Q by Dale Hawkins, Lets Have A Party by Wanda. Allison himself scored a modest solo hit with “Real Wild Child” - a cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s “Wild One” - which was released under his middle name, Ivan, in 1958 and peaked at No. Tracks on Disc 1: 1.Cmon Everybody - Eddie Cochran 2.Rave On - Buddy Holly 3.Tutti Frutti - Little Richard 4.Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You Ever Want. 3 on the Top 100 later that year as a solo single for Holly. “Peggy Sue,” on which Allison was also credited as a co-writer and which was named after his then-girlfriend and future wife Peggy Sue Gerron, hit No.

1 hit, The Crickets followed “Day” with a string of successful singles including “Oh, Boy!”, “Maybe Baby” and “Think It Over” (the latter co-written by Allison). Alongside bassist Larry Welborn (subsequently replaced by Joe Mauldin) and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan, they later found success as The Crickets, scoring their first hit with “That’ll Be the Day,” recorded during a February 1957 session with songwriter and producer Norman Petty in his Clovis, N.M., studio (a country-leaning version of the song had previously been released by Decca during Holly’s short-lived stint in Nashville).Ĭo-written by Allison, Holly and Petty, the 1957 version of “That’ll Be the Day” was released by Brunswick Records and slowly picked up steam on radio before hitting the peak of the Billboard Top 100 (the progenitor of the Hot 100) in September of that year. 31, 1939, in Hillsboro, Texas, Allison attended the same middle school as Holly in Lubbock, Texas, but the two didn’t become friends until high school, when they formed a band and began playing gigs at roller rinks and other local venues. Over the years I’ve enjoyed doing some deep dives into songs that for one reason or another I find interesting.Shirley Watts, Widow of Rolling Stones Drummer Charlie Watts, Dies at 84īorn Aug. Previously, I’ve written about These Foolish Things which was covered by Bryan Ferry, Ghost Town by The Specials, All The Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople and most recently, Still Of The Night by Whitesnake. What I really like is going down the rabbit hole of a song and exploring the story behind it and the people involved in creating it: the writers, the musicians and the producers. It was time to do another one, but I couldn’t find something that piqued my interest. Having just marked the anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, by posting my art remix of a remarkable and rarely seen photo of him, I thought about looking at one of his songs. However, there’s little that hasn’t already been written about them. That being said, the story of Buddy Holly has always appealed to me and I remember reading biographies about him and going to see the West End musical Buddy many years ago.Īround the anniversary of his fatal plane crash - the so-called day the music died - I was listening to as many podcasts as I could find about Buddy and his songs, when I heard a snippet of one that whilst unfamiliar to me, reminded me of something else. The phrasing sounded an awful lot like Marc Bolan, but this was a song from 1958. The artist was called Ivan, someone I’d never heard of, and if I remembered right, Buddy Holly played on the song.Īnd with that, curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it I was googling ‘Ivan’ and ‘Buddy Holly’ to see what it I could find. The result of that search started me on a new journey, down a new rabbit hole as I pursued the story behind Real Wild Child by Ivan.

Ivan, it turns out, was the middle name of Jerry Allison, the drummer of the original Crickets, Buddy Holly’s backing band. So the first question was, who was Jerry Allison?īorn 31 August 1939, in Hillsboro, Texas, Allison moved to Lubbock when he was ten. Show song Well, Im just out of school Like Im real, real cool.

Real wild child buddy holly