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Saturday at the Wildish: Josue keeping music of Holly, Valens alive

SPRINGFIELD – Legendary country artist Waylon Jennings said he was always haunted by his final conversation with Buddy Holly.  

The young musicians were in Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 2, 1959, amid a 24-day, 24-show winter tour – a gauntlet through a succession of frigid Northwestern towns. A day earlier, drummer Carl Bunch had bailed out of the tour with frostbitten feet. Holly, tired of dealing with their cold, broken-down bus, chartered a four-seat plane to get to the next night’s concert in Moorhead, Minn. 

Holly asked guitar player Tommy Allsup and Jennings, his bass player, to join him. Jennings gave up his seat to J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who had the flu and wanted to see a doctor the next day. Allsup wound up flipping a coin with Ritchie Valens, a young musician who was traveling with Holly’s band. When he won the coin toss, Valens happily proclaimed that it was the first time he had ever won anything. 

As the plane was taking off, Holly was kidding around with Jennings and said, “I hope your damned bus freezes up again.” To which Jennings replied: “I hope your ol’ plane crashes.” 

Only 17 at the time, of course, Waylon Jennings – who was 64 when he died in 2002 – didn’t wish that fate upon his friends. But Buddy Holly, 22, Ritchie Valens, 17, and The Big Bopper, 28, were killed that night as the plane crashed shortly after takeoff in a snowy Iowa cornfield. Pilot Roger Peterson, 21, also died. 

According to Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie,” which was written as a tribute to Buddy Holly, that fateful night was “The Day the Music Died.” To this day, many would agree that McLean was right on target and that Holly’s influence on the world of rockabilly, R&B, country, rock, and pop music is almost immeasurable. Valens’ music career lasted just seven months, yet the “La Bamba” artist also left an indelible mark that spans the globe. 

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Joshua Josue is doing his part to keep the music of Holly and Valens alive. He’ll perform “A Night of Rock ’n’ Roll Tribute” with his band, “Not Fade Away,” on Saturday night, Feb. 1 at the Wildish Theater in Springfield. They’ll be playing the songs of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper, commemorating the 66-year anniversary of their tragic demise. 

“I don’t try to be Buddy Holly and I don’t try to be Ritchie Valens,” Josue said by phone recently from his Portland home. “I  try to represent their music. I don’t want to make a caricature of Buddy Holly or Ritchie Valens; the world lost them; I just do my best to sing their songs the way they were intended to be sung.” 

IFYOUGO:
WHAT: A Night of Rock ‘n’ Roll Tribute
WHO: Presented by Joshua Josué
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1
WHERE: Wildish Theater, 500 Main St., Springfield 
TICKETS: Standard: $30;  Seniors: $25; Students: $20

Some of those Buddy Holly songs – like “That’ll Be the Day,” “Peggy Sue,” and “Oh Boy,” as well as Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” and “Oh, Donna” – are still the timeless classics that fans enjoyed more than a half-century ago.

“There would be no Beatles without Buddy Holly, at least not the Beatles as we knew them,” Josue said. “In the movie “The Real Buddy Holly Story,” Paul McCartney sits with his guitar and tells about how he learned “Love Me Do” after listening to Buddy Holly and how that was the gateway drug into learning three-chord songs for him.” 

 “Love Me Do” was the Beatles’ first hit in 1963, reaching No. 17 on the charts. A year later, it was re-released in the USA and became a No. 1 hit. 

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Josue, 51, grew up in the Eugene area, attending Cal Young Middle School and Sheldon High School. But he didn’t graduate from Sheldon … due to, well, what you might call a slight bus detour. 

“I got kicked out of school,” Josue recalled. “I had been in an argument with my parents, and I broke into the school bus. There were some keys in there, so I wound up sleeping in the school.”

Eventually, he wound up in Portland, also living in Guadalajara for a bit. He’s always loved to travel around the country on his motorcycle, making videos all along the way. He has honed his skills as a professional videographer, filmmaker, and photographer, which are handy for any accomplished musician.

Recently, he has been collaborating with Ben Rice, a guitarist and songwriter for blues legend Curtis Salgado, a former Willamette High grad. Josue and Rice teamed up on Salgado’s most recent CD, “Fine By Me” – “our first intro into songwriting together.” 

Josue’s mother is Mexican, but when he was growing up in Guadalajara, he said he was ridiculed for his Spanish, and his grandmother “wanted to leave the old country behind.”

Then he saw a video from “La Bamba.”

“I saw Los Lobos playing. I had not seen Mexican-American guys playing before,” Josue said. “I started playing their music. Then I saw ‘The Buddy Holly Story.’ I listened to Ritchie and Buddy’s music, and there’s something true and honest about it.”

“I call my original music Chicano rock. It’s 50-50 – half Spanish, half English … and part Spanglish, whatever works.” 

It’s all working pretty well right now for Joshua Josue. He’s doing his part to keep the spirits of two legends alive. 

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