Clovis Music Festival shouldn’t be missed

The question of the day came to me as I was picking up a trio of breakfast burritos at Foxy’s.

In actuality, the question did not come to me until I saw the man who would know the answers: A.C. Bryant.

The question is, What did Buddy Holly order when he came to Clovis and stopped at that particular drive-in, one of his favorite places?

The answer: either a hamburger or steak fingers.

Why should I go to the Clovis Music Festival? That may be the other question of the day, and the answers are as individual as the person responding.

It might be, because people come from as far away as Great Britain to attend this particular event. Isn’t that cool?

I am among the last to applaud tribute bands. That is well known to some of the regular readers who know that I have made fun of them in the past. That being the case, it is all the more worth noting that this festival, with both tribute music and legends in the flesh, is truly worth the time, money and planning for you to attend.

At last year’s concert, I never had the feeling that I was watching a knockoff. I was really, truly mesmerized, able to suspend disbelief and be transported back to 1960.

Ask Frank Sherman, program director for Tallgrass Broadcasting local affiliate: “The music festival brings us in touch with a piece of the great history of Clovis, of how Clovis impacted the music world with the Clovis sound.”

Impacted — that’s an impact still felt today, not a short-lived fad. This wasn't like punk rock or grunge, where only a few diehards hang on. (Whew —I can see the e-mails coming over that one.)

Rockabilly becomes southern rock, southern rock becomes today’s country — you can draw a line of apostolic succession, musically speaking, from Buddy Holly, from Roy Orbison, to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marshall Tucker, then to Montgomery Gentry and Toby Keith, with side tracks marked Janis Joplin and Emmylou Harris, through outlaw cousins Waylon Jennings and Jessie Coulter. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.

I grew up listening to oldies stations in western Pennsylvania, and in the late 1960s early 1970s, these were staples of the diet. I believe

I knew who Buddy Holly was as well as I knew the names of the local favorite band, the Vogues from Turtle Creek, Pa.

Do yourself a favor. The Clovis Music Festival, revived several years ago by Pam Atherton and ably expanded on by the Chamber of Commerce’s Liz Eisenbraun, is only a couple weeks away. There are three nights, three separate shows. Make time for at least one evening. You won’t regret it. You won’t know what you’d be a missin’.