Buddy Holly Raves On Into 21st Century

​Lonesome Onry and Mean's buddy doesn't like the new tribute to Buddy Holly, Rave On, which features a major-league lineup of artists ranging from Sir Paul McCartney, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and Graham Nash to youngsters like Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Black Keys and the unlikely inclusion of Cee-Lo Green.

Our buddy's complaint? "No one can do Buddy Holly songs as well as Buddy Holly," he pontificates. "And these versions are trying so hard to be different than the originals, it's just like what's the point?"

Realize LOM's buddy also hates metal bats, the American League, college sports events and probably hot dogs, baseball, and apple pie.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean, on the other hand, grew up just 130 miles south of Holly's hometown of Lubbock, and was nine years old when the 22-year-old singer's plane plunged into a frozen Iowa field in February 1959. Who's to say whether Holly rather than Elvis Presley might have reigned as King had he lived? What we do know is that in West Texas we worshipped Holly like a deity.

And indeed it is inarguable that, as a composer, even at his tender age Holly was one of the Zen masters of the nascent genre known as power-pop. His music influenced everyone, the Beatles, the Stones, Rockpile and almost anyone who's ever been in a recording studio and called themselves a rock band.

And while it might seem that our devotion to Holly might cause us to agree with our curmudgeonly compadre, we in fact quite like Rave On. We like it for the attempts to deconstruct and reconstruct some of Holly's most popular tunes.

Some highlights: