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Boomer Anthems: The Rolling Stones cover Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away “I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be…”

Not Fade Away is 64 years old today. “64?” That can only mean…. ***

“How long has the long hair been fashionable in England?”

Early Rolling Stones. VERY early.  The long lead-in is worth it for the cultural anthropology alone.

My love a-bigger than a Cadillac
I try to show it and you drive a-me back
Your love for me a-got to be real
For you to know just how I feel
A love for real not fade away
A love that’s love – not fade away
A well, a-love that’s love – not fade away

This not to say that the Stones did not upgrade the performance of this classic…

Meanwhile, sixty-plus years after Buddy Holly cut it, the song is still kicking it on Austin City Limits…

[Note: On this version, it is permissible to go full-screen, crank up the volume, and get jiggy with it. We’re looking at you Hangtown Bob and Peg, two for whom “love is love and not fade away.”]

*** ?? Oh Yeah…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • robert jones July 14, 2017, 4:37 PM

    Wasn’t JI’s nickname Joe ‘Bias’ ? Joe used to ask Buddy to ‘Buy us a Coke’, ‘Buy us some lunch’

  • RL Homer May 28, 2021, 1:53 AM

    IMO the very best version of “Not fade away” was done by the Grateful Dead in 1971 on their live Original Skeleton and Roses album. Not fade away segues into “Going down the road feelin’ bad” and is perhaps the two best songs off a live recording that has been done. Recorded at the Manhattan Center In NYC in 1971. Yeah, a traveler of MANY GD concerts mostly on the West Coast when it was REALLY cool place to be and the music was exceptional, mid 1960s into the very early 1980s.
    Here is a link for any interested:

    https://youtu.be/pvcb1mkihho

  • Dirk May 28, 2021, 1:36 PM

    Awesome, love music, as I pen this it’s “ Quicksilver Messenger Service” The Best Of, on a quick silver tube amp, Thur a California audio labs player, pushed thru a copy of Klipsh’s corner horns, “ AudioLab”, everything in em is Klipsch. Five ft tall, four ish ft wide and three ft deep.

    These boys kick ass. Next up Joesphs Coat! Talk about a walk down memory lane. Voodoo Lounge’s on deck.

    Heard some high end shotguns arrived at the gun store,,,, think I deserve another shotgun I won’t ever shoot. Frankly my guns are a dam good investment. Will evenly triple in value, when the feds done.

    Which reminds me, would you folks consider commenting on the 90 day comment section of ATF, regarding ghost lowers, bump stocks, armalites and mags in general. Very important. You have about 78 days to purchase 80%lowers. 5D tactical is marketing an impressive lower, just went up to 115.00 from 90.00. Per lower.

    Not that I give a shit what ATF does or says, when a tool to counter their intended direction is available, I gotta contribute. My letter just may cost me some freedom. Lots of fuck you’s,,,, and eat shits involved.

    Basically I told em I don’t need one of Jerry’s Kids to interpret the Constitution, the Bill of Rights for me. Have zero intentions of following their dumb ass rules ever again. Dan it did it again. Off topic! Sorry GV, my minds moving five miles a minute these days.

    VI

  • Auntie Analogue May 28, 2021, 3:57 PM

    When I first heard it in 1964 the Stones’ first U.S. LP version of “Not Fade Away” became my all-time favorite rock studio recording. It still is. They transformed Buddy Holly’s bop original into a driving storm of rhythmic passion, and no one has ever equalled Brian Jones’s harp on that number.

    The Stones’ early live performances of that song are also superb – the later performances are, I feel, over-baked.

    That said, props to commenter RL Homer because I also love the Dead’s 1971 live blowout of “Not Fade Away/Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad.” If I’m at the wheel motoring along that’s the rendition I prefer.

    I blow a workmanlike blues harp (up and down along the Mississippi I’ve sat in on harp with some very good blues bands, with barroom blues outfits, and with the late piano bluesman James Crutchfield) and whoever the woman blowing harp on that Austin City Limits video is, she does an embarrassingly amateurish job on those reeds.

    That Bo Diddley Beat – “shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits” – is as infectious as a rhythm gets, and not every band can do it well. But when it’s done well, I defy anyone to claim that it hasn’t spurred his toes, or any other body part, to tappin’.

  • Armchair Sinner May 28, 2021, 8:22 PM

    Nah, chasmatic had it right. I miss that curmudgeon—

    Here ya go ArmChair:

    When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I Corinthians 13:11

    But Jesus saith unto him, Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead. Matthew 8:22

    Posted by: chasmatic at January 16, 2015 9:49 PM

  • RL Homer May 29, 2021, 2:47 AM

    Thats what I be talkin’ ’bout, people who know their music and are not trapped into any of the garbage out today. My stereo equipment is all vintage save for the CD player. For vinyl I use a Dual 1219 with a Shure M97 cartridge which might have been one of or maybe the last NOS made in USA Shure’s, Receiver is a 1972 Marantz 2270 that tested out at 90 watts per channel at at Macintosh clinic in the 1990s, is all original, 1972 Marantz Imperial 6 speakers which were not very popular which I never understood. They pair very well with the receiver, and AR 4s when I want to have 4 speakers.

    Cudos to Auntie Analogue for blowin’ that harp and love of the blues. I started sneakin’ into bars and clubs when I was 15 just for the blues and was caught and tossed out of so many after a time they just gave up and let me hang in back of the stage. Personal favorite is John Lee Hooker who I saw countless times and was fortunate enough to have had a few conversations with him. Total gentleman and class act.

  • Glenfilthie May 29, 2021, 7:30 AM

    Boomers start reliving their youth and the music of their era … and I just want to suck start the 12 guage. Then I check myself because you guys deserve it far more than I do. Hate to break it to ya, geezers – but your music sucked balls, and the world will be a better place when you and your musicians are gone. The worst one for that is Kim du Toit. He’s even worse, he pervs out over old broads too.

    Eeerrrrmmmm… have a nice day! HAR HAR HAR!!!

  • jwm May 29, 2021, 7:41 AM

    Thanks, Glen. And fuck you.

    JWM

  • Vanderleun May 29, 2021, 9:00 AM

    Don’t let us get in the way of your transition from sucking your usual source of sustenance to a 12 gauge. Suck on, Glen, as is your wont.

    We h ave the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Dylan, and Rolling Stone in which we lay out the 500 greatest rock songs and you have….. what? Twitter?

    Where we say “Rock on” you must be content with “Tweet On.” Sucks to be you.

  • Skorpion May 29, 2021, 1:34 PM

    Loved the starstruck girls — a big part of pop music ever since Frank Sinatra crooned to his first bobby-soxer audience.
    As for the song? I’ve said it before, and will say it again:
    Elvis may have been *The King*.
    Chuck Berry may have been *Mr. Rock n’ Roll*.
    But Buddy Holly was the first rock *artist*. His songs will be loved and covered as long as guitars and drums exist.

  • RL Homer May 29, 2021, 6:51 PM

    Glen:
    I would be more than happy to ‘assist’ you sucking on the 12 gauge. You can even be on twatter as you suck in the lead.
    Indeed, sucks to be you.