Joe Maudlin was a high school student in Lubbock, Texas when he joined his first band, The Four Teens.  But when he skipped out of study hall for a cigarette break, he made a friend, Jerry Allison, who invited him to play a date in New Mexico, where they were backing up a new singer, Buddy Holly.

That dance has been called a defining moment in rock history. Mauldin, along with Allison, Niki Sullivan And Sonny Curtis joined Holly to become one of the most influential bands in early Rock and Roll. The group split with Holly in October, 1958, after a fight between Holly And Mauldin, but the door was left open for a reunion, and Mauldin said that was being discussed when Holly was killed in a plane crash on February 3rd 1959, “The Day The Music Died”. In the mid-60’s he became a sound engineer in Los Angeles, working with major talents like Phil Spector, Herb Alpert and Leon Russel, but he continued to perform over the years with Jerry Allsion as The Crickets. We met him at one of those shows before his death in 2015.