Mississauga News - November 25 2000
Buddy is on his way back to Stage West
Mississauga's Jeff Scott used to do American Pie playing in his teenage garage band. Little did he know ironic that would turn out to be. The hit song from 1971 makes reference to "the day the music died" when rock & rock legend Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash. Now, at age 34, Scott makes a living performing the songs of the bespectacled Texas rocker, performing in over 100 legends shows a year.
Holly and his band, The Crickets, rose to stardom out of Lubbock, Texas in 1951. Holly died an untimely death in 1959. Also killed in the crash were fellow pop music stars Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.
Scott will re-create the role again as part of tomorrow's Heaven On Earth...In Dreams Reunion show at Stage West. Joining Scott will be Anthony Von as Elvis Presley and Bernie Jessome as Roy Orbison.
"I was 17 and had my own band in Newmarket called Silent Echo. Oddly enough, we would always end with American Pie, which was written about them (Holly and The Crickets)," said Scott, who is married and lives in Clarkson.
Scott graduated from the Humber College music program in 1989. The next year, he auditioned for the Royal Alex production of Buddy. He didn't land the role but he did get Jeff an offer to play Holly with the Kokomo Beach Band on a U.S. tour in 1995. The highlight was a two-week gig at the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas.
He has cloned Holly in a number of venues since. From 1996-'99 he was part of Toronto's Rock & Roll Heaven company, a tribute to the rock stars of the 1950s and 1960s. Now he has signed on Feb with an agency that lands him similar gigs.
What impresses Scott most about Holly was his versatility. His hits, like Peggy Sue, Rave On and the classic, That’ll Be The Day, were smash hits with the teenagers of the day.
From the day he released That’ll Be The Day in May of 1957, Holly wrote a string of chart-topping hits.
Scott said tomorrow’s show is different from other similar performances thanks to the interaction on stage between Holly, Presley and Orbison