Buddy Holly only lived for 8,184 days and RC contributor Spencer Leigh manages to squeeze each and every one of them into his book, the aptly -named Everyday. It’s an opinionated, but often witty, account underpinned by a series of meticulously-gathered interviews with Buddy’s nearest and dearest. Leigh, who points out at one stage that many of Buddy’s most dedicated fans are “blinkered and will hear nothing bad about him”, has created such an unsentimental, unpretentious account of Buddy’s life through his layering of various opinions and anecdotes, that the result is far from ordinary.
Raw, unedited interviews with Buddy’s siblings, his widow Mary Elena, the infamous Peggy Sue, old bandmates The Crickets and a multitude of other musicians are left to tell the story of the idol and his music – and do so commendably. Everyday smashes through the smoke-and- mirrors to give an animated, informative and refreshingly candid portrait of the rock’n’roll legend and his enduring legacy. A truly exhaustive account of how the music was born, and why it never died.
