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Song buddy holly that will be the day5/18/2023 ![]() ![]() On one side of the disc was That’ll Be The Day, homage to Buddy Holly and the Crickets, featuring John Lennon’s lead vocal with Paul McCartney providing the high harmonies. The disc’s labels clearly instructed Play with a light-weight pick-up … but bore no mention of the words Quarrymen, and certainly not Beatles, a name they wouldn’t adopt for another two years. A short while later, having parted company with 17s 6d, the five Quarrymen left 38 Kensington passing among them the cherished fruit of their debut recording session: a very-breakable 78rpm record, ten-inches in diameter. Having travelled with their instruments from the south end if the city, a quintet called the Quarrymen – John Lennon, Paul McCarntey and George Harrison, who all played guitars, John Lowe who played the piano, and Colin Hanton the drummer – turned up at Phillips Sound Recording Service one day in the spring or summer of 1958. Word of Pillips’ facility soon spread, and as skiffle and then beat music took hold so it began to attract a number of Liverpool’s younger musicians, eager to commit their sound to disc and be able to announce that they had made a record. While trams rattled along Kensington – their noise was deadened by a heavy curtain over the studio door – Percy Philllips would first commit the performance to tape and then, provided that the Artiste was not distressed with the result, immediately transfer this to a shellac disc, wiping over the tape next time someone used the studio. Having arrived for their appointment customers would sit in a waiting area and, when prompted, move into the living-room, face up to the microphones and perform, live. Sparse it may have been but Phillips’ recording facility was efficient. So in 1955, spurred by the local interest in country and western music, Phillips spent £400 on a portable tape recorder and portable disc cutting machine, microphones and a four-way mixer, which were installed in the middle living-room of his Victorian terraced house at number 38 Kensington, a major thoroughfare located a mile beyond Liverpool city center. Running an electrical goods shop in Liverpool wasn’t enough for Percy Phillips, and being 60 certainly wasn’t going to stop him. The 1958 pressing is thought to be one of the world’s most valuable records, worth an estimated £100,000. Their rendition, recorded in 1958 as a demonstration disc, was issued on the Beatles compilation album Anthology 1 in 1995. ![]() “ That’ll Be the Day” was the first song ever recorded by the Quarrymen. In 2005, the 1957 recording was placed in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that “ are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” The 1957 Brunswick Records single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. The 1957 Buddy Holly recording was certified gold – for over a million US sales in 1969 by the RIAA. Although Norman Petty was given a co-writing credit on it, he was not actually involved in the composition, but only in the production of this well-known recording. It was also the first song to be recorded - albeit only as a demonstration disc - by The Quarrymen, the skiffle group that subsequently became The Beatles. “ That’ll Be the Day” is a classic early rock and roll song written by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison and recorded by The Crickets and various artists including Linda Ronstadt. ![]()
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