Peggy Sue

“Peggy Sue” is a rock and roll song written by Jerry Allison and Norman Petty, and recorded and released as a single by Buddy Holly in early July of 1957. The Crickets are not mentioned on label of the single  but band members Joe B. Mauldin (string bass) and Jerry Allison (drums) played on the recording. This recording was also released on Holly’s eponymous 1958 album.  The song was originally entitled “Cindy Lou”, after Holly’s niece, the daughter of his sister Pat Holley Kaiter. The title was later changed to “Peggy Sue” in reference to Peggy Sue Gerron (1940–2018), , the girlfriend (and future wife) of Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets, after the couple had temporarily broken up.  In her memoir, Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?, Gerron stated that she first heard the song at a live performance at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in 1957, and that she was “so embarrassed, I could have died.” Appropriately, Allison had a prominent role in the production of the song, playing paradiddles on the drums throughout the song, the drums’ sound rhythmically fading in and out as a result of real-time engineering techniques by the producer, Norman Petty. Joe B. Mauldin (string bass) also played on the recording. Initially, only Allison and Petty were listed as the song’s authors.  At Allison’s insistence, Holly was credited as a co-writer after his death.