A Line From a Western
The story begins not in a recording studio, but in a Texas movie theater in 1956. Buddy Holly and his friend and drummer, Jerry Allison, were watching the John Wayne western, "The Searchers." Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, repeatedly used the dismissive
catchphrase, "That'll be the day." The line stuck with the young musicians. Later, when Holly suggested they should try to write a hit song, Allison jokingly mimicked Wayne's voice, retorting, "That'll be the day." A lightbulb went off. Within about half an hour, they had sketched out the song that would define Holly's career and influence generations of musicians, from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones.
The Nashville Clash
Armed with his new song, Holly, who was signed to Decca Records, headed to a recording session in Nashville in July 1956. The session was helmed by producer Owen Bradley, a key architect of the smooth "Nashville Sound" who was more comfortable with countrypolitan artists than rock and roll upstarts. The partnership was a disaster. Bradley and the label executives tried to sand down Holly's raw, rockabilly edges, pushing him toward a more conventional country sound. They reportedly slowed the tempo and altered the pitch, fundamentally misunderstanding the song's energetic spirit. After numerous takes, an exasperated Bradley allegedly declared "That'll Be the Day" to be one of the worst songs he had ever heard. Decca shelved the recording and released other singles from the sessions that went nowhere.
Dropped and Defiant
By January 1957, Decca Records had seen enough. The label officially dropped Buddy Holly, declining to renew his contract. But there was a catch, a standard but punishing clause in his contract: Holly was forbidden from re-recording any of the songs he had cut for Decca, including "That'll Be the Day," for a period of five years. For the label, it was a way to protect its investment. For Holly, it was a creative prison. He was sitting on a song he knew was a hit, but he was legally barred from doing anything with it. Lesser artists might have given up and moved on, but Holly believed in his vision with a stubbornness that would soon make music history.
The Clovis Sound
Undeterred, Holly and his band drove 100 miles from their hometown of Lubbock, Texas, to a small studio in Clovis, New Mexico. The studio was run by producer Norman Petty, who, unlike the Nashville establishment, gave Holly the creative freedom he craved. On February 25, 1957, in a session that felt worlds away from the sterile Nashville environment, Holly and his band, now known as The Crickets, finally recorded "That'll Be the Day" the way they'd always heard it in their heads. Gone were the country session players; in their place was the raw, driving energy of Holly's own band. The result was leaner, faster, and crackling with the youthful energy Decca had tried to suppress. They knew they had captured something special.
A Clever Workaround
With the perfect recording in hand, Holly and Petty faced the legal hurdle of the Decca contract. Their solution was both simple and brilliant. To bypass the restriction on Buddy Holly as a solo artist, Petty got the band a deal with Brunswick Records and released the single under the group's name: The Crickets. The song was released in May 1957 and, after a slow start, caught fire, eventually soaring to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The ultimate irony was that Brunswick Records was a subsidiary of Decca—the very label that had rejected the song and the artist. Faced with a massive hit they had let slip through their fingers, Decca belatedly released its own sluggish 1956 version to try and cash in, but it was too late. Holly's defiant, superior version was already a classic.
