Lethbridge Herald - June 6, 2000
When Jeff Scott straps on a sunburst Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, a Buddy Holly trademark, he begins to take on the persona of the 1950s rock 'n' roll legend.
A smoothing of an ocean-blue felt suit, punctuated by a thin black silk tie; a wave of a hand through gelled dark hair and the donning of the black horn-rimmed glasses, and the transformation is complete. Scott becomes Buddy Holly, music pioneer, mystic figure and a talent who died long before reaching his full potential.
For almost 10 years, Scott has captured the Holly persona in various concert acts, dinner theatre productions and, in his latest incarnation of the lanky Texan, as part of the Legends Alive Tour 2000. Scott, playing Holly, was joined on stage at the Lethbridge Sportsplex Monday by impersonators playing acts and artists such as the Blues Brothers, ZZ Top, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Barry Manilow and Cher.
Scott wasn't born when Holly, then 22, died in a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield in 1959. But he saw the biographical movie starring Gary Busey based on Holly's short life and was immediately touched by the music. He studied old Ed Sullivan clips of Holly performances and read whatever he could get his hands on about the man and his musical style to get his stage presence as close to the real thing as possible.
He played Holly for the first time in 1990 and then he toured the United States with the Kokomo Beach Band as the legendary singer. He honed his performance with a six-week stay at the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas. He says it's easy to slip from Jeff Scott, singer/songwriter/musician, to Buddy Holly, singer/songwriter/musician.
"When you're doing the show and you've got the band, the suits, the mikes and the lights, it's just like playing in a 1950s band," says Scott, a native of Newmarket, Ont.
While it's easy to slip into the persona on stage, Scott
has no problem delineating the two people inside him. “As soon as you step
out there with the guitar and the music and putting the glasses on you do kind
of get lost in it, but in a good way. I make a conscious effort to keep busy
with other things." He says the lure of Holly's character for music fans
of all generations is his ability to bring back memories.