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Topic: 'Rave on!' Return to archive
7th September 2007 08:28 AM
Ten Thousand Motels September 07. 2007 6:59AM
'Rave on!'
Civic ready to rock with 'Buddy Holly Story'

WEEKEND
ANDREW S. HUGHES
Tribune Staff Writer
South Bend Tribune

SOUTH BEND -- Today would have been Buddy Holly's 71st birthday, and South Bend Civic Theatre has a party planned for the occasion -- the opening of "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story."

Based on the career of the 1950s rock 'n' roll pioneer, "Buddy" follows Holly and his band, The Crickets, from their first recording sessions in 1957 to the night of his death, Feb. 3, 1959, at age 22 in a plane crash after a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa.

"They've taken some liberties with the facts, but all stage shows do," director Jeff Wilder says of "Buddy." "It's the music. It's hard-driving rock 'n' roll from the early days, and you can't help but leave the theater on a high."

A founding member of the local band Chantilly Lace (named for the Big Bopper's signature hit), Jack Pavlekovich plays the Big Bopper in Civic's production of "Buddy" and serves as its music director. As a member of Chantilly Lace, he also has toured as the opening act for the real Crickets, drummer Jerry I. Allison and bass player Joe B. Mauldin.

"If I had to guess, Buddy would have been the hyper one of the three," he says. "They are laid-back country boys."

Movie critics, too.

"The motion picture with Gary Busey?" Pavlekovich says in reference to the 1978 bio-pic. "(Allison) told me the only thing they got right was the name."

For its production of "Buddy," Civic already has gotten a lot right. At Tuesday's rehearsal, the band -- Holly (Billy McGuigan) and the Crickets (Troy McKee, Jim Paczesny and Tim Jester) -- sounded authentic and enthusiastic, an accomplishment in itself.

Although all of them are musicians, these Crickets had just met their Holly only a week earlier because Civic hired McGuigan for the title role, which the Omaha, Neb., resident has played more than 300 times since first being cast in it in 2002 with the Omaha Community Playhouse.

"He really was still a kid, but he was uncompromising about his music," McGuigan says of Holly during his brief career. "If he felt something about his music, there was nothing you could say to change it. ... His determination is the thing I walk away with. To be able to tell adults, 'If you don't want to do it my way, I don't need you.' "

Counting rehearsal time, McGuigan will spend about five weeks in South Bend, which he characterizes as "a bit smaller" than Omaha but with the "same type of feel" a week after arriving for rehearsals.

"The positive thing about it is that you don't just go as a tourist," he says of touring in the role of Holly. "After a few weeks, you feel like you live there. I was in New Orleans for three months, and after the first month, you've done all the tourist things. After that, you find the good restaurants that you wouldn't have."

Although he's played Holly more than 300 times, McGuigan says every production differs from the others, which keeps him interested in playing the role.

"I have the comfort level of, 'Yeah I've done it before,' but that's all I have," he says. "What I do stays the same, but I have to adapt. Although the script is the same, it's always different because of a different director, a different cast. I spend more time forgetting things than memorizing the show. Some directors have their own vision of it, and others say, 'You've done it. You just do it,' but it's good to have some direction."

Aside from some blocking, Wilder says, he's given McGuigan little direction since he joined the cast for rehearsals on Aug. 28.

"Billy is just the ultimate talent, a professional showman, yet down-to-earth individual, and he's fit right in with the cast," the director says. "I said, 'Step out there, and you'll know where you're going.' We could have performed last Tuesday if it weren't for set changes."

Except for a few recorded pieces of music used for scene transitions, all of the music in Civic's "Buddy" is performed live by McGuigan, McKee, Paczesny and Jester, as well as Pavlekovich as the Big Bopper and Michael Cripe as Ritchie Valens, both of whom died with Holly in the plane crash.

"I had never played rockabilly, so I went and got some lessons," McGuigan says of learning Holly's songs. "The hardest thing for me was trying to wrap what I knew about guitar playing around his style. ...'That'll Be the Day' is still tricky for me after five years. It's just tricky enough. It's easy, but there is something to it that catches you up."

As for Holly's famous hiccup, McGuigan says it came naturally, in part, he thinks, because he was used to matching his voice to that of the original artist when he played in a cover band.

"He had four voices: his regular Buddy voice, this lower voice where he tried to be sexy and like Elvis, this nasally voice in 'Peggy Sue' and then this hiccup," McGuigan says of Holly's voice. "Like his guitar playing, he had so many styles that influenced him he could switch in and out. 'Peggy Sue' is the perfect example, because you have this sexy voice, the nasal voice and the hiccup."

Before he auditioned for the role in Omaha, however, the 32-year-old knew very little about Holly or his music, although he and his wife had seen the London production of "Buddy" six months earlier. Since then, McGuigan has developed an avid appreciation for Holly's music.

"He truly was, at age 22, this incredible rock 'n' roll pioneer," the actor says. "Unfortunately, all you remember is that he died in a plane crash, I feel, but he was one of the few guys writing his own music, he started the pop trio, and then he added a second guitarist later. He was one of the first guys to ever overdub his voice on top of his own voice. His music still holds up. A lot of '50s music, you listen to 'Tutti Frutti,' and yeah, it's a great record, but it doesn't really hold up."

Holly's music, Pavlekovich says, is the "heart" of rock 'n' roll.

"It's the beginning of rock 'n' roll," he says. "Without Buddy Holly, I don't think we would have rock 'n' roll today, because if you listen to Little Richard and Chuck Berry, it's basically rhythm and blues sped up. Buddy Holly was getting into some intricate things, like bringing strings into it."

In those 18 months that Holly recorded, the Lubbock, Texas, native changed much of the course of rock 'n' roll with both his innovations as a songwriter, rhythm guitarist and lead guitarist and for the influence he would exert over such later bands as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

"Buddy's responsible not just for the music that came out of England in the '60s, but also punk," McGuigan says. "You put a distortion pedal on his music, and you have punk music."

7th September 2007 08:35 AM
Ten Thousand Motels
7th September 2007 08:37 AM
Ten Thousand Motels
7th September 2007 08:44 AM
Ten Thousand Motels
7th September 2007 08:56 AM
egon for a moment there i thought this thread was about house music.
luckily it's not and my weekend's saved!
7th September 2007 09:00 AM
Ten Thousand Motels
quote:
egon wrote:
for a moment there i thought this thread was about house music.



Oh no, I'm not into that stuff.
7th September 2007 09:00 AM
Ade everyday is a holly day
7th September 2007 11:50 AM
BONOISLOVE 'Hey there!'
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