Various Artists - Rave On Buddy Holly

Rave On Buddy Holly - More than fifty years have passed since the the tragic death of 22-year-old rock-meets-pop pioneer Buddy Holly, a songwriter who helped put a respectable (and spectacled) white face on what seemed, at the time, as a rough, dirt-smudged and hormone-fueled budding musical genre with indelible black roots...Holly's simple, concise three-chord basics and innate gift for a hummable melody have served as a blueprint for generations of songwriters particularly for those that chose the Beatles over the Stones and McCartney over Lennon...New collection gathers up some big names -- Fiona, Cee Lo, Black Keys, Lou Reed, Kid Rock -- for nineteen covers of gems from the Holly catalog // Release: Rave On Buddy Holly (June 28, Concord/Hear Music) // Sounds like: the simple, 2-minute pleasures of songs like "Words of Love", "Rave On", "Oh Boy" and "Peggy Sue" work the best when things are left as stripped and uncluttered as Holly's originals: eg. Fiona Apple and Jon Brion's "Everyday", She and Him's "Oh Boy", Julian Casablanca's "Rave On" // Quote: "As the tracks from various contributors were gathered for the album, we seemed to be gathering pieces of a complex and original puzzle ... that traces back to the roots of rock and roll and shapes so much of the music that followed." - Project Producer Randall Poster // What we like: lots to admire here, but it's Patti Smith's surprisingly deft, lush and almost spiritual reading of "Words of Love" is the brilliant real head-turner here...

Fiona Apple & Jon Brion - "Everyday" (from Rave On Buddy Holly)

Patti Smith - "Words of Love" (from Rave On Buddy Holly)