In the spring of 1959, an Iowa farmer found a pair of thick black horn-rimmed glasses in a thawing field. They belonged to Buddy Holly, a 22-year-old from Lubbock, Texas who was famous for barely 18 months yet permanently changed popular music. This deep dive goes beyond the day the music died to examine the obstacles and workarounds that shaped his career.

We follow Holly from a musical family and late-night skywave radio to seeing Elvis, a failed Decca stint in Nashville, and a five-year ban on re-recording his songs. We explore how recording in Clovis with Norman Petty, releasing That’ll Be the Day under the name the Crickets, and a dual-label strategy beat the system, and how Maria Elena Santiago helped expose withheld royalties that pushed him onto the fatal Winter Dance Party tour.

• The greased violin bow and other stories from his Lubbock childhood
• How corporate silos let Brunswick release the song its parent company Decca had blocked
• Winning over the Apollo Theater crowd with a Bo Diddley beat
• The coin flip, seat swaps, and unfamiliar Sperry attitude gyro behind the crash
• Two guitars, bass, and drums, double-tracked vocals, and his influence on the Beatles, Dylan, and Keith Richards