Oh Boy! SingalongaUke Hoot at the White Horse, Weds 5 September

We need someone to commemorate at this week’s Uke Hoot (that’s Weds 5 Sept at The White Horse, 266 Canongate, from 7.30, btw) and there are two possible candidates….

This week (Friday to be precise) includes the birthday of specky rocker from Lubbock, Texas, Buddy Holly…

Despite being only 22 (?!) when he died in an air crash, Holly left dozens of songs which have refused to Fade Away since 1959. He also established the standard rock line up of two guitars, bass and drums, and set the trend for bands writing their own songs. It is no exaggeration to say that he launched the beat boom of the sixties, particularly in Britain where he was even more popular than in the USA (an odd Holly factette is that he may have been descended from ancient mariner Sir Francis Drake). The Hollies were named after him, and the Beatles’ name was inspired by Holly’s band, The Crickets. Keith Richards saw him play live on a UK tour, and Holly’s Not Fade Away was The Rolling Stones’ first top ten hit (a song which The Grateful Dead played live on 530 occasions).

But what would we play? Spoiled for choice, really: Peggy Sue, Everyday, That’ll be the Day, True Love Ways, Heartbeat, Crying Waiting Hoping, Oh Boy, Rave On etc etc. If I had to pick one, though, I’d go not for a Holly Song but Don Maclean’s 1972 singalong tribute, American Pie.    "I can’t remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride…“  Feb 3 is not an auspicious day for a Holly fan to board a plane.

But this week served us a reminder that it was not all groovy happenings, Austin Powers and free love in the sixties.When The Beatles and The Stones were at the height of their fame, inspired by Buddy Holly, the highest earning performer in the UK was in fact Max Bygraves, who died at the weekend.  He collected 31 gold discs, mainly from the Singalongamax series in the early seventies. There are a few vaguely amusing songs in the Bygraves’ oeuvre - we could try You Need Hands, memorably covered by those other lovable Cockney rogues, The Sex Pistols, or Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellenbogen By The Sea, or perhaps best of all Lionel Bart’s wonderful Fings Ain’t Wot They Used To Be.