The Daily Star
Jeff Katz, the deputy
mayor of Cooperstown,
loves music and writing
and combines them in
``Maybe Baby (or, You know
that it would be untrue),’’ a
new blog for rock ‘n’ roll
lovers.
His concept can be boiled
down to two words: what
if?
What if, on Feb. 3, 1959,
Buddy Holly hadn’t climbed
aboard that small plane in
Clear Lake, Iowa? What if,
instead, he’d insisted his
bass player, Waylon Jennings,
join Richie Valens
and the Big Bopper on that
ill-fated flight?
Ten years later, Holly,
the late ’50s phenomenon
from Lubbock, Texas, might
still have been playing concerts,
but would the world
have passed him by?
As Katz imagines Holly
in 1969, when hair was long
and the counter-culture
was booming:
``It wasn’t that he didn’t
like the new groups.
``Like many ’50s stars,
he had toured England in
the early years of the decade,
and he
had met The
Beatles and
The Rolling
Stones. Nice
boys, all of
them. He
loved The
Beatles’ version
of his
`Words of
Love.’ It was a solid take,
Liverpool, not Lubbock.
The Stones’ cover of `Not
Fade Away’ was a bit sloppy,
but Buddy thought it
was exciting.
``But now he couldn’t relate.
`Sgt. Pepper’ what was
that? It didn’t rock, that’s
for sure, and you couldn’t
dance to it.’’
In this rewriting of history,
Jennings would have
died at 21, never to create
his own brand of outlaw
country music. And Holly
would have dwelled on how
much was lost with his bass
player’s passing.
``Now he was dead, dead
10 years from that horrible
crash. Buddy thought of
Waylon every day,’’ Katz
writes, ``how he made him
get on that plane to prove a
point. “`Wichita Lineman’
was playing. `What would
Waylon Jennings have done
with country music?’ Buddy
wondered. He would have
brought the Nashville establishment
down to its
knees. But he was dead.’’
At the end story, Katz,
46, a former options trader,
presents some facts and
context for the reader.
``I’ve written 14 of these,
and more are on the way,’’
he said Friday. ``My goal is
to have them collected and
published, but this blog is a
way to get them out there,
see who likes them.’’
A couple of weeks ago,
Katz sent his first story —
an embellished account of
how a young Paul McCartney
joined John Lennon in
1957 — to the Internet.
Comments so far have
been gratifying, he said.
``I was wondering how to
release these, and finally
decided to post a new one
every two weeks,’’ he said.
To see what might have
but never really happened
visit the following website.
