By Lauren Sloss | June 6th, 2011
Have you been listening to the singles off of the upcoming Buddy Holly tribute album? Man, I hope so. Talk about a combination of all good factors — some of today’s best indie artists (The Black Keys, Julian Casablancas) and legends of the past few decades (Lou Reed, Graham Nash) have joined together in tribute of Buddy Holly, one of the first rock ‘n’ rollers to really carve out the form.
The most recent release has been My Morning Jacket’s cover of one of Holly’s last recorded tracks, “True Love Ways.” Lush, romantic, and (of course) a shade of epic, MMJ’s cover is rich with Jim James’s tremulous voice and a layer of strings. Carried by the delicate picking of guitar strings, its hard not to think of Holly’s premature death at 22 in a plane crash, while simultaneously getting swept away in the lovely simplicity of his lyrics. Beautiful and tragic — talk about the building blocks of rock ‘n’ roll.
Rave On Buddy Holly will be released June 28; check out the full tracklist and listen to The Black Keys fantastic cover of “Dearest” here.