The Crickets

The "Crickets" started out as pure fiction -- the name a ruse by Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, and Joe B. Mauldin to avoid the provisions of a 1956 contract that Holly had signed with Decca Records, that would have prevented the release of their then-new recording of "That'll Be The Day" on the Brunswick label. The name stuck, and for the next 15 months there were records by the Crickets and records by Buddy Holly -- which were virtually interchangeable -- and they were billed as Buddy Holly & The Crickets. By the end of 1958, however, the references to "Buddy Holly and the Crickets" were becoming valid in the worst possible way -- Holly's shifting and expanding musical interests, coupled with his move to New York and marriage to Maria Elena Santiago, and the differing relationships that the three had with their manager, Norman Petty, led to a split between Holly and his bandmates in the months immediately prior to Holly's death in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.

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