Surrounding Buddy Holly isn’t the same sort of cult that follows the likes of Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis. It might have to do with Holly’s early demise. But just as likely, it’s that coupled with equal parts impish persona revealed through those four eyed photographs of the guitarist, songwriter and Crickets leader.

Dismissal based upon appearance isn’t new or even unique to this situation. But in mentioning those other performers from about the same time, it’d be easy to figure Holly as the most enduring and influential the role of underground music in the States.

The opening to Reminiscing, issued through Coral Records in 1963, is the album’s title track. The supplemental horn line makes R&B an easy cultural reference. But if you take a listen to the drumming here and then what Nick Knox laid down for the cramps twenty some odd years latter, there’s a notable similarity. Purposeful or not, this music wound up setting a template that not too many performers have been able to reach.

Weezer didn’t ever and doesn’t now constitute the underground, but one of its earliest hits was nothing short of a paen to the deceased singer. Perhaps the popularity of the song with this man’s name is further proof that Holly’s import has been drastically under-estimated in the recent past. If nothing else, though, the cries of thief don’t resound when discussing his career as opposed to that other guy with sideburns – covering “Bo Diddley” hasn’t seemed to bother anyone for some reason.

What’s interesting about all of this is Holly’s image, since it was given time to disintegrate ala Presley’s, is that of a well scrubbed, clean and friendly youth who racked up a few hits before boarding the wrong plane.

Listening to most of the song’s he penned, though, there’s a pretty pervasive downer aesthetic at work. Seeing Holly smiling on the cover of his albums is then totally misleading. How many of his songs deal with being wronged by a women? Probably too many for his age. And while the topic was and will remain a tried and true rock trope, there was an odd joy in each of Holly’s performances as he sang into a mic and got it all in the can. “I'm Gonna Set My Foot” even amps up the retribution.

It’s just a surprise all of this vitriol fell out of this man at such a young age. I wonder who the girl was the wronged him.