What a find. Thanks to our man in France-Perry Leopard-for finding this fascinating recording of Buddy Holly history.
In it, Holly uses a bit of aw-shucks passive aggressiveness when contacting his former record label (Decca) to confirm that he is indeed a former member of their roster and to see if he could take the half-dozen or so songs they passed on and use them as he saw fit.
Seems logical enough, until the label president Paul Cohen points out that the tunes are the property of Decca, based on the merits that the label helped fund the recording session.
Holly then offers compensation to reimburse the label for the cost of those sessions, to which Cohen refuses.
Throughout all of the conversation, Holly peppers his dialogue with a respectful tone, voicing his displeasure with the company with such politeness that Cohen offers a half-assed commitment to listen to whatever new material that Holly is working on with the remote possibility to release it.
One of those songs that Buddy was trying to get back from Decca was “That’ll Be The Day.”
Recorded half an octave higher than the version that became a hit, Holly managed to weasel around the restrictive Decca contract by releasing it under The Crickets.
The best part of the story is how it resembles the more notorious Wilco story several decades later: The Crickets were signed to Brunswick Records, a subsidiary to Decca. In another bit of sticking it to the man, Holly signed a solo contract with Coral Records-another Decca subsidiary.
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