2. The Self-Contained Rock Band
According to modern scholarship (I mean Wikipedia) Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the world’s first modern rock band. That is, they were the first “self-contained rock band”: the first group to write and perform their own material in addition to playing their own instruments. Of course this isn’t true. Popular R&B artists like Fats Domino and Lloyd Price had been writing and releasing their own hits since the late 40s and early 50s, but the all-white Crickets were the first massively successful “self-contained rock band,” which inspired later groups (such as, oh I don’t know, The Beatles?) to follow in their footsteps. [photo]
