Earl Sinks born 1 January 1940

Henry Earl Sinks (January 1, 1940 – May 13, 2017), known professionally as Earl Sinks, was an American rock and roll singer-songwriter and actor. Sinks' career in music and acting spanned the 1950s to the 1990s. He is best known for his brief tenure as a member and occasional lead singer of The Crickets from 1958 to 1960, and for his acting roles in numerous low-budget movies and TV shows in the 1960s. 

He recorded under the names Earl Sinks, Sinx Mitchell, Earl Richards, and Earl "Snake" Richards. He wrote songs for various other artists, including Sue Thompson, The Everly Brothers, The Newbeats, Ernie Ashworth, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, Mel Tillis, and Buddy Holly. He also played guitar and sang harmony for sessions with artists such as Mel Tillis, Del Reeves, Mel Street, and Charlie Pride. 

He was born on New Year's Day in Whitharrel, Texas, near Littlefield, and not in Amarillo, as is alleged by some sources, although Earl did move there later in his youth. Sinks performed with Bob Wills at the age of twelve; he created his first recordings as a solo artist in 1958 (aged eighteen) at Norman Petty Studios. Under the alias of "Earl Henry", he recorded 2 singles: "I Am The Man/Whatcha Gonna Do?" and "My Suzanne/Believe A Traveler" with Dot Records. 

After Buddy Holly split with The Crickets near the end of 1958, Sinks was brought in as his replacement by manager Norman Petty. He recorded and performed with The Crickets after Holly's death in 1959, contributing to the album In Style With the Crickets, singing on songs such as "I Fought the Law," "Love's Made a Fool of You", "Deborah", and "When You Ask About Love". Sinks' association with The Crickets ended in February 1960, citing a personal disagreement. David Box was later brought in to finish recording and fulfil the band's contract with Coral Records. 

                                   

Sinks later moved to Nashville, where he continued to release records. He recorded for Decca Records, in addition to Hickory, Capitol, Coral, Brunswick, United Artist, Warner Brothers, and Ace of Hearts Records. He and Norro Wilson, along with Bill Fernez, recorded as the country band The Omegas. In October 1958, Tommy Allsup rejoined The Crickets for the "Biggest Show of Stars: Autumn Edition” after Buddy split from Jerry Allison and Joe Mauldin. The Roses, a vocal backup group, also performed on the tour. 

To form a new band for the planned “Winter Dance Party Tour”, Buddy asked his friend Waylon Jennings to play bass, with Tommy Allsup on guitar and Allsup's friend Carl Bunch to play drums. Tommy and Sinks remained in New York following the end of the “Winter Dance Party Tour” for promotional pictures with J.I. and Joe B. as The Crickets. Sinks had recorded earlier with the Crickets, along with Sonny Curtis, and sang lead on their version of "I Fought the Law,” “Someone Someone,” and “Love's Made A Fool of You." In 1959, he came to Nashville with Bob Montgomery, where they worked together as songwriters with Acuff-Rose. 

In the mid-1960s, Nashville filmmaker Ron Ormond sought a leading actor for his low-budget films. He consulted Smiley Wilson, an artist and booking agent, who recommended his son-in-law, Earl Sinks. At this time, Earl was recording for the Warner Brothers record label as well as appearing in some of the Warner Brothers' television shows, such as Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Surfside Six. In his debut film with Ron Ormond, The Girl From Tobacco Row, Earl Sinks acquired a new nickname, "Snake Richards". During an interview with Ken Beck of the Tennessean newspaper, Sinks revealed: “Ron gave me that name.” From then on, deejays began referring to him as Snake Richards. Along with The Girl From Tobacco Row, Ormond's film White Lightnin' Road also included Earl as "Snake" and also later in the 20th Century Fox film by Richard Ball That Tennessee Beat. 

In 1972 he was appointed manager of the Ace of Hearts label (not to be confused with the UK label of the same name) and bought the label with Gene Kennedy the following year. On Ace of Hearts Earl had four more entries in the country charts between 1973 and 1978, the most successful being "Margie, Who's Watching the Baby". In 1976 Sinks launched the short-lived RPA label, for which he rerecorded "House Of Blue Lights" and an LP with that title. Over the years he produced for artists such as John Anderson, Faron Young, Joyce Cobb, Jimmy Dickens, Porter Wagoner, Mark Dinning, The Remingtons, Bobby Lewis, Mel Street, and many more. 

According to the Nashville Tennessean, Sinks lived with his wife, who was once known as Little Rita Faye on the Grand Ole Opry and was the daughter of country stars Smiley and Kitty Wilson. They had a son Brandon Earl Sinks, who also became a musician, and were married for over 50 years .They lived in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, where Earl Sinks died at his home on May 13, 2017. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & This Is My Story)

Buddy Holly born 7 September 1936

Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959) better known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer, songwriter, and a pioneer of rock and roll.  

Buddy Holly is considered one of the most influential founding fathers of rock 'n roll. Although his career was tragically cut short, his body of work is considered among the finest in rock. His works and innovations were copied by his contemporaries and those who were to follow, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and had a profound influence on popular music.

Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas to Lawrence Odell Holley and Ella Pauline Drake in 1936. The Holleys were a musical family, and, as a young boy, Holley learned to play the violin (his brothers oiled the strings so much that no one could hear him play), piano and guitar. In the fall of 1949, he met Bob Montgomery in Hutchinson Junior High School. They shared a common interest in music and soon teamed up as the duo "Buddy and Bob." Initially influenced by bluegrass music, they sang harmony duets at local clubs and high school talent shows. His musical interests grew throughout high school while singing in the Lubbock High School Choir.

Holly turned to rock music after seeing Elvis Presley sing live in Lubbock in early 1955. A few months later, he appeared on the same bill with Presley, also in Lubbock. Holly's transition to rock was finalized when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets at a local rock show organized by Eddie Crandall, who was also the manager for Marty Robbins. As a result of this performance, Holly

was offered a contract with Decca Records to work alone, which he accepted. According to the Amburn book (p. 45), his public name changed from "Holley" to "Holly" on February 8, 1956, when he signed the Decca contract. Among the tracks recorded for Decca was an early version of "That'll Be The Day," which took its title from a phrase that John Wayne's character said repeatedly in the 1956 film, The Searchers. 

Back in Lubbock, Holly formed his own band, The Crickets and began making records at Norman Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Norman had music industry contacts and believing that "That'll Be the Day" would be a hit single, he contacted publishers and labels. Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed Buddy Holly and The Crickets. This put Holly in the unusual position of having two record contracts at the same time. Before "That'll Be The Day" had its nationwide release, Holly played lead guitar on the hit-single "Starlight", recorded in April, 1957, featuring Jack Huddle. The initial, unsuccessful version of "That'll Be The Day" played more slowly and about half an octave higher than the hit version. 

Holly managed to bridge some of the racial divide that marked rock n' roll music. While Elvis made black music more acceptable to whites, Holly won over an all-black audience when the Crickets were accidentally booked at New York's Apollo Theatre. After the release of several highly successful songs, Holly and the Crickets toured the United Kingdom in 1958. 

That same year, he met Maria Elena Santiago (born 1935 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) while she was working as a receptionist for a New York music publisher. He proposed to her on their very first date. She initially thought he was kidding, but they were married in Lubbock, Texas on August 15, 1958, less than two months after they met. Maria traveled on some of the tours, doing everything from the laundry to equipment set-up to ensuring the group got paid. 

The ambitious Holly became increasingly interested in the New

York music/recording/publishing scene, while his easy-going bandmates preferred to go back home to Lubbock. Holly acceded to their wishes and in 1959, the group split up. Holly began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper". 

Two nights after a performance in Duluth, Minnesota, the three headliners gave their final show in Clear Lake, Iowa. Following the February 2, 1959 performance at the Surf Ballroom, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch, and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota. Carl Bunch did not take the flight as he had been hospitalized for frostbite three days earlier. The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he wasrecovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens had never flown on a small plane and requested Allsup's seat. They flipped a coin for it; Valens called heads and won. 

The four-passenger plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:55 A.M., but crashed only a few minutes after takeoff. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. 

While theories abound as to the exact cause of the crash, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board (one of the predecessors of the Federal Aviation Administration). Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport, killing 65. 

Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after. 

Holly's funeral services were held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, and his body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city. Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his surname (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar. (edit from Wikipedia. Mp3 and scan from Lord Of The Bootsale)

Jerry Allison born 31 August 1939

 

Jerry Allison (born Jerry Ivan Allison, August 31, 1939, in Hillsboro, Texas) is an American musician, best known for being the drummer for The Crickets. 

 

In their early days at the Lubbock Youth Center, Buddy Holly's vocal and guitar were backed only by Allison's drumming, allowing for some of Holly's best guitar work. Over time, Allison's rhythm backup ranged from slapping hands-on-knees or hand-clapping the beat to a modal plainness of cymbal drumming. His snappy cracks at the snare drum gave power to the tough, vengeful songs released under the name The Crickets. Later songs, released under Buddy Holly's own name, were softer in tone and filled with innocence and longing. On these, Allison played only tom-toms in keeping with the vulnerable sound of the vocals. His work on The Crickets recordings gave the records much of their distinctiveness and has influenced subsequent generations of Rock and roll drummers.  

 

Norman Petty, the manager, often manipulated song-writing credits and Allison, although credited with another recording to which he contributed little, helped to compose the music for some of the famous songs, notably "That'll Be The Day" and "Peggy Sue" (Allison later married Peggy Sue Gerron, the namesake of the latter song). "That'll Be The Day" was originally recorded by Holly before he started working with Petty, so the latter's appearance on the song writing credits for the later version by The Crickets illustrates the point about manipulation of the credits. Allison has referred in several published interviews to his role in composing "Not Fade Away", whose credits show Norman Petty/Charles Hardin - the latter a pseudonym for Buddy Holly.  

 

Although Allison did not sing on The Crickets records made with Buddy Holly, in 1958 he did release the single "Real Wild Child" — having heard Johnny O'Keefe play the original during The Crickets brief visit to Australia that year — which he recorded under the pseudonym Ivan, with Buddy Holly on guitar and backing vocals. It was a minor chart entry in 1958 and the first studio recording of the song that would become a rock standard. Allison also sang on a few later releases by the Crickets, both singles and album tracks. 

 

Allison also worked as a session musician. For example, he played on the studio recording of The Everly Brothers' "Till I Kissed You" in 1959.   

 

After Holly's death in 1959. Allison continued his musical career. He retained control of the band's name, and has toured and recorded with a regularly-changing group as The Crickets - see the reference "been more Crickets than a dog's got fleas" in the band's "Three Piece" track from the 1980s. The most consistent members of this band have been bassist Joe B. Mauldin who was in Buddy Holly's Crickets, and guitarist-singer Sonny Curtis who played with Holly before The Crickets were formed in 1957, and rejoined shortly after Holly's death. Others who have been in and out of the band include Glen D. Hardin, also associated with Elvis Presley's last live band; Albert Lee, also once part of Emmylou Harris' Hot Band; and assorted lead vocalists including Earl Sinks, David Box, Jerry Naylor, and Gordon Payne.

 

 

 

The Crickets line up from 1962. left to right: Sony Curtis, Jerry Allison, Jerry Naylor & Glen D. Hardin. 

 

The band's last recordings for the Coral label included several singles which were incorporated in the 1960 album In Style with The Crickets. The rock classic "I Fought the Law" written by Sonny Curtis, first appeared here, and tracks from singles released after Holly's death included their version of Holly's "Love's Made a Fool of You", a chart entry for them in the UK in late 1959, and the Allison/Curtis composition "More Than I Can Say" which was later recorded by Leo Sayer and other artists.

 

 

 

 

Allison switched the band's contract to Liberty Records in 1960, after they had supported The Everly Brothers on a UK tour. He moved his base to Los Angeles, where an old Texas friend Snuff

Garrett was installed as a senior producer at Liberty. Allison, with Sonny Curtis and another former Holly sideman, Tommy Allsup, became effectively members of the core the Liberty house band, working with Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette and others. In this period they also played as backing musicians on tracks by Eddie Cochran and, according to some reports, Conway Twitty. Both Allison and Sonny Curtis were drafted at different times in this period, limiting any possibility of continuity in the make-up of The Crickets. Sonny Curtis also began to establish a significant solo career as a songwriter and singer/guitarist. 

 

In the late 1970s, the band toured for a period with Waylon Jennings, another one-time Buddy Holly sideman. In more recent years, The Crickets have put out albums including collaborations with many artists who recognise their influence in early rock 'n' roll. These include Nanci Griffith, with whom they have also toured, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Johnny Rivers, Waylon Jennings, Bobby Vee and many others.  

 

 

In 2007, Allison was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN as a member of the Crickets.  

 

 

In 2012, Allison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Crickets by a special committee, aimed at correcting the mistake of not including the Crickets with Buddy Holly when he was first inducted in 1986.  (Info edited from Wikipedia)