Bringing the late great Buddy Holly to life on stage

SussexWorld

Chris Weeks is Buddy Holly as The Buddy Holly Story hits the road in its 34th year. Dates include Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, Sept 19-23; and The Hawth, Crawley, October 13-14.

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil here at

00:05 Group Arts, editor for Sussex Newspapers. Fabulous to be speaking to Chris Weeks,

00:08 aka Buddy Holly. You are on the road as the Great Man. Now how on earth do you approach

00:14 someone who is so iconic, who meant so much to so many people? How do you do it?

00:20 It's a difficult thing. I mean, he means an awful lot to me as well. You know, I've grown

00:26 up with the music from the show and from the Great Man himself. But essentially, I think you just have

00:32 to approach him as a human being, a remarkable human being, absolutely. Someone who was incredibly

00:38 driven, incredibly talented, very forward thinking, but was very warm-hearted, very kind,

00:45 very open, very generous, all of these things. He lived life to the full. And so whenever you

00:50 step onto the stage, I just, you know, the work that I've done is to breathe all of these things

00:56 in, to put them all into the melting pot, you know, all the ingredients that go into sort of

01:01 the cake, and then you put it in the oven, you see what comes out the other side. And I don't

01:04 try and guide it too much. It's sort of like, you just try and live in the moment, really.

01:08 Absolutely. And you're saying a fascinating thing, that obviously you feel the reverence for the

01:12 Buddy Holly himself, but you can't take that reverence onto the stage. What do you mean by that?

01:17 Well, if you're trying to play an icon, I think it would just come off as false,

01:23 or it would come off as a tribute, you know, and we're not a tribute show. It's easy to sort of

01:27 get confused because you think, "Oh, well, you're paying tributes, Buddy." Yeah, of course we are.

01:31 But we're recreating moments on the stage, you know, as they would have happened. We're doing

01:37 it organically. There's nothing on sort of backing tracks or on clip tracks like musical theatre

01:41 shows use. Everything that you hear is created live in the room. And so we're, essentially,

01:47 we pay homage to Buddy by trying to do it all honestly and authentically and organically on

01:52 the stage. There's nothing fake about it at all. And you must get fantastic response from audiences

01:57 wherever you go with this show. We do. We're very lucky. I think there's no feeling quite like it

02:02 when you get to the end of Buddy and you think, "Oh, wow. I mean, this is the top of the tree."

02:07 You know, you're a rock and roll star and there's nothing like it. No wonder they loved it so much.

02:11 It's amazing. And absolutely. And as we were starting to say just now, you see his influence

02:16 filtering through into so many people that followed, hadn't you? It's no exaggeration,

02:20 really, to change music, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you see it right up to the

02:24 present day. I mean, look at Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran as an innovator, as a songwriter,

02:27 as a guitar man. The thread goes back to Buddy. It's not an accident. It is. It is. He played

02:33 the guitar. He was the leader of his outfit of the crickets. He was a songwriter. He was a producer.

02:38 He was the vocalist. And then you see it go through the Beatles and all the way down.

02:42 It started with Buddy in a big way, the original sort of singer-songwriter.

02:48 Sounds fantastic. And it's been going as a show for 34 years. I hadn't realised it.

02:53 34 years. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Which says it all about the regard he still held in,

02:59 doesn't it? I think the show has played a big part in that. You know, I think

03:03 Buddy was an amazing person and the people who knew about him loved him and respected him. But

03:09 there's always the chance that, I mean, think about someone like Little Richard, you know,

03:12 he's not on sort of everyone's lips. And you think about the songs that he wrote and the songs that

03:17 he sang. But he's never had sort of the treatment that Buddy's had in terms of being remembered.

03:21 The show revitalised, I think, a lot of interest in Buddy. And now they sort of go hand in hand.

03:27 And it must be a daunting thing to be incarnating him now.

03:31 It is. It's daunting, but it's incredibly rewarding. And yeah, it's a privilege. I've

03:39 been thinking this, just especially this last week. It's a privileged position that we're in.

03:44 AJ, who shares the role with me and myself, it's amazing. You know, you can't,

03:49 you couldn't put a price on it. It's amazing. Perfect. Well, really lovely to speak to you.

03:54 Good luck with the rest of the tour. And those Crawley gates are in October, aren't they?

03:58 Yes. Yeah. It's a little way off. Get those tickets in there. They've already started selling.

04:03 Fantastic. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you.

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