The Buddy Holly Story comes to Rutland Jan. 22 Tickets on sale now 

The Buddy Holly Story comes to Rutland’s Paramount Theatre on Thursday, Jan. 22 for one show only at 7:30pm. Viewed by more than 20 million people in over 20,000 performances worldwide, Buddy tells the story of Buddy Holly through his short yet spectacular career, and features the classic songs, “Peggy Sue,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Not Fade Away,” “Oh Boy,” Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba,” and The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace.”

Starting out as a Country & Western singer in Lubbock, Texas, Buddy and his two friends Joe and Jerry form “The Crickets,” and with the support of a local radio DJ, “Hipockets” Duncan, they begin to carve out a career in music.

After an inauspicious start at Decca Records in Nashville, Buddy and the Crickets sign a contract with an up-and-coming innovative record producer. Within hours of meeting they start to record Buddy’s biggest hit “That’ll Be The Day” which will rocket up the charts to number one in a matter of weeks. Buddy Holly & the Crickets suddenly become the hottest act in the country.

Now successful, the Crickets travel to New York, where Buddy meets and proposes to Maria Elena Santiago after a courtship which takes all of five hours. Newly married and ambitious, Buddy completely shifts his focus to New York and an inevitable rift develops between him and the Crickets. Soon after the band splits and Buddy unexpectedly finds himself pursuing a solo career.

Buddy’s final performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, with Ritchie Valens (“La Bamba”) and the ‘Big Bopper’ J.P. Richardson (“Chantilly Lace”) is recreated. After the concert, Buddy breaks his promise to his pregnant wife not to fly as he and the other two headliners board a small plane and fly off into the night for Moorhead, Minn., only to crash into a ploughed field shortly after take-off.

The tragedy snatches away the lives of three dynamic musical talents – Buddy Holly (22), Ritchie Valens (17) and the Big Bopper (28) – and as the legend says, it was “the day the music died.”

Buddy Holly’s brief life has become the stuff of legend. The Buddy Holly Story is a celebration of the life and times of the young man with spectacles and catches that unique mixture of innocence, determination, humor and charm that was Buddy Holly, and wraps it up into a package that has become the most successful rock and roll musical.

Tickets (starting at $39.50) are on sale now and available at the venue box office located at 30 Center Street in historic downtown Rutland. Patrons can charge-by-phone by calling (802) 775-0903 or purchase online at www.paramountlive.org.