Peggy Sue Gerron passes away at 78

LUBBOCK — Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue will live forever in rock-and-roll history.

The woman for whom the song is named passed away Monday in a Lubbock hospital.

Peggy Sue Gerron was 78.

The original song, by most accounts, was focused on a girl named Cindy Lou, Buddy Holly’s niece.

By the time the record was released on Sept. 20, 1957, it was called “Peggy Sue,” a tribute to the girlfriend of Jerry Allison, one of Holly’s bandmates in the Crickets.

Gerron and Allison eventually married, then divorced, but Gerron delighted in her connection to the song — No. 194 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 greatest songs of all time — throughout her life.

“She was a sweetheart and she loved being a part of the history here,” said Ernie Kos, executive director of Clovis’ Chamber of Commerce.

When the Chamber opened its Rock and Roll Museum in 2008, Gerron was on hand for the dedication.

“She was coming out with a book,” Kos recalled, “and so it was perfect timing for her to promote it.”

Gerron, an Olton native who grew up in Lubbock, attended Clovis’ annual Music Festival many times.

Friends called her charismatic and always eager to remember the old days when she would hang out at the Norman Petty studio where her namesake song was recorded.

“If you were not involved in the session, you either stayed in the background or didn’t come in because Norman didn’t want any kind of noise to interfere with what he was working with,” said Clovis musician David Bigham who worked with Holly and Petty in the 1950s.

“But she was always supportive of everybody.”

Bigham said Gerron was not a professional musician herself, but he described her as “a go-getter.”

While there are multiple versions of the history of “Peggy Sue,” many believe the music was written by Holly and Allison, while Petty wrote the words — changing “Cindy Lou” to “Peggy Sue” at the request of Holly and Allison.

The Lubbock Avalanche Journal reported Gerron was a ham radio enthusiast and that she is survived by two children and multiple grandchildren.