Rock n Roll Scrap Book
My mum just dug out an old scrap book that she found in the loft, it had been up there for donkeys years. I can only guess it's something somebody must have given me when I was a kid. I was playing gigs in pubs in the late 1980s. I was 15 years old, although I looked all of about 12.
Being a big fan of early Rock n Roll and Buddy Holly in particular, that was the music we were playing at that time.
Some of the older musicians or people who came to our gigs sometimes kindly gave me Buddy Holly related books or records they had lying around, after seeing this little kid's enthusiasm for his music. This scrap book has been up in my parents loft for a good 30 years or so by now!
I guess it must have been someone local who made it, since they are all UK news clippings and there is a cliiping in the book advertising a concert at The Savoy Theatre in Burnt Oak in NW London. One of my first regular gigs was at a pub called The Broadway (destroyed by a fire, then demolished a while ago) which was on the same road as the Savoy Theatre, which is now shops.
This scrap book is a little Alladin's Cave of news clippings, mostly from 1960 & 1961. It features lots of stories and publicity form the popular artists of the day, such as Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Eddie Cochhran, Elvis, Gene Vincent, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, Gene Vincent, Ray Charles, Brenda Lee, Dion & The Belmonts, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Neil Sedaka, Roy Orbison, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke and many others who were stars in the making at the time. Also a few stories about James Dean and his new movies.
The first few pages are dominated by stories of the recent losses of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper and also Eddie Cochran, which happened around the time this scrap book was being made.
Rock n Roll scrap books
The page entitled "Five days to live" features a really bizzare story about Buddy Holly driving back to Lubbock, Texas in a Ferrari, a few days before he died, to spend some time with his wife "Sue", then driving back to rejoin the Winter Dance Party Tour. It suggests the young pilot, Roger Peterson, was known to be a "Daredevil" and that the plane was seen bursting into flames after take-off and Buddy was found clutching his guitar. A sensational sounding story, even if it was absolute nonsense.
I tried in vain to find the original creator of this book. There were some clues in the clippings, but eventually got nowhere with it. I hope one day they will see this blog. It's a fascinating timepiece, not only for it's content, but as an artifact in and of itself, that people used to make scrapbooks like this with such love and attention to detail.
Grab yourself a nice cup of tea and enjoy these fascinating pages, so brilliantly created by a young Rock n Roll fan some 60 years ago at the time of writing this blog!
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