Norman Petty

Buddy Holly and the Crickets made some of the most memorable records of the rock-and-roll era in Norman Petty’s off-the-beaten-track homemade studio in Clovis, New Mexico. Holly was probably the best all-around musician of the first generation of rockers—an inventive guitarist, songwriter, and singer—but he manifested these attributes only under Petty’s supervision. Petty, a cocktail lounge organist whose trio had had a couple of minor hits in 1954, was in many ways an improbable catalyst....