ON THIS PROGRAM, we profile a truly American original, Buddy Holly, who crossed musical barriers in forging his unique musical style. He got his start as the opening act for Elvis Presley, who loaned him his Martin guitar for the show. Like rockabilly itself, his national career was brief: it was only 18 months between his first hit song, “That’ll Be the Day,” and his death at the age of 22 in a plane crash in February 1959 that also killed Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson. Yet Holly wrote hundreds of songs and left his mark on popular music, influencing everyone from Bob Dylan to The Beatles, who named themselves as a tribute to his group The Crickets.