Bobby Vee & Waylon Jennings - Learning The Game 1988 & 1996

Bobby Vee – Buddy Holly Medley (1988 PBS “Buddy Holly & The Crickets – A Tribute”) & Waylon Jennings “Learning the Game” (1996 TNN). From my Sunday Night Hall of Fame Show tapes and my VHS Buddy Holly collection:
This video begins with a portion of my May 27, 1989 interview of The Crickets, when they appeared at the “Mayfair Festival” in Allentown, PA. At that time Cricket members included Buddy Holly’s original drummer Jerry Ivan Allison, AKA: “J.I.”, and bass player Joe B. Mauldin. Gordon Payne was the lead singer/guitarist and by 1989 had been a member of The Crickets for approximately (5) years. During the interview I asked the group about their relationship with Bobby Vee and Joe B. replied that they still see him when touring the Mid-West.

After the brief interview segment, it’s a performance from the 1988 PBS special “Buddy Holly and The Crickets – A Tribute”. This segment is by Bobby Vee as he sang a medley of three of the final songs Holly wrote and recorded in his apartment: “What To Do”, “Crying Waiting Hoping” and the haunting “Learning the Game”. The special had aired on most PBS stations during 1988.

After Bobby Vee’s performance, I next included the 1996 Waylon Jennings version of “Learning The Game”, one that still gives me chill bumps when I listen to it. Waylon’s version was from The Nashville Network, aka: “TNN”, and a February 1996 special “Remembering Buddy”, which coincided with the Decca label release of the album “Not Fade Away – Remembering Buddy Holly”.

The special included Waylon throughout, talking about the history of Buddy Holly and The Crickets, and of course his own personal relationship with Buddy. Most have long been aware that by January 1959, and the ill-fated “Winter Dance Party” tour, Holly and The Crickets had briefly split up. And so it was that Buddy enlisted the help of two musician friends of his to help on the tour: his protégé Waylon Jennings and also Tommy Allsup. Richie Valens flipped a coin with Allsup to win his seat on the plane, and Jennings gave his to J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) because Richardson was not feeling well, and did not want to ride to the next concert stop on the old converted school bus being used for the tour.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets became one of my favorites in 1957 when I first heard “That’ll Be The Day” on my radio. I started writing, producing and hosting tributes to Buddy, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as early as 1969 on WEEX - AM 1230 in Easton, Pa. That was the tenth anniversary of the plane crash and coincided with the Coral album release “Buddy Holly - Giant”. At first I called the special tribute show “Three Star Special”, as influenced by a 1959 hit song “The Three Stars” by Tommy Dee. After Don McLean’s dedication of “American Pie” to Buddy, I started calling the show “The Day the Music Died”. My tribute shows continued throughout my broadcast radio career in the Lehigh Valley, PA and Northwest New Jersey area. The last time my five-hour special aired was February 3, 1999 on WODE – Oldies 99.9.

To Recap: This video features Bobby Vee from the 1988 PBS special: “Buddy Holly and The Crickets – A Tribute” and Waylon Jennings from the 1996 TNN cable channel special “Remembering Buddy”. The video and audio tracks have been restored from my VHS tapes that I recorded off the air in 1988 and in 1996.

The Sunday Night Hall of Fame Show was broadcast from 1980 to 1992 on WAEB - AM 790 and WKAP – AM 1320. My show returned between 1999 and August 2001 on WODE “ Oldies 99.9”. All stations were located in the Allentown – Bethlehem – Easton, PA area, AKA: The Lehigh Valley.