Sunday, August 9, 2015

Calendar* Correction: Buddy Holly & the Crickets at the Apollo Theatre

Buddy Holly and the Crickets played at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York from August 16-22, 1957.   The tour was set up by Norman Petty, working with promoter Irving Feld, not bothering to tell the group that they would be the only white act on the tour.  But contrary to the movie The Buddy Holly Story (which is otherwise a great movie starring Gary Busey as Buddy) and numerous websites, which indicate that the Apollo didn't know the group was white, and did not discover this until they showed up, management at the Apollo did indeed know.  The Schiffman family, which owned the theatre, were aware that the Crickets were white.  Frank Schiffman's sons, Bobby and Jack, had seen the Crickets in Washington, D.C. during the first leg of the tour, according to the book Buddy Holly:  A Biography by Ellis Amburn.  Unlike the other theatres which booked the Crickets only to be shocked that they were white, the Apollo booked them because black record-buyers were buying "That'll Be The Day" in considerable number.

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