Continue reading »]]> Listen To Me: Buddy Holly inaugurates Songmasters’ Listen To Me series of year-long multi-media celebrations of the True. Great. Original. artists who forever changed modern music and culture.
Each future campaign will feature today’s leading and emerging artists paying tribute to their musical roots to support and empower the next generation of music’s great talents and innovators.
Press Release

Continue reading »]]> Maria Elena Holly, Buddy’s widow, told us “Buddy did everything he could to make sure that talented young musicians and songwriters got a real chance, he even started his own label – he called it ‘Prism’ – to make this possible. He would be especially thrilled, as I am, that so many outstanding artists are part of this effort to honor his personal commitment to recognize and help great young musical talent.”
This project carries on Holly’s legacy of boosting and empowering new artists. Since 2009, Songmasters has endowed The Holly Prize, an annual award juried and presented by the Songwriters Hall of Fame to recognize and support the “all-in-one songwriter,” an exceptionally talented and inspired young musician/singer/songwriter whose work exhibits the ambition and artistic qualities of Holly’s music. Listen To Me: Buddy Holly will also benefit numerous music-related organizations – including The Grammy Foundation’s “Grammy Camps” and Artists’ House Music – each of which support the artistic growth and professional development of young musicians and industry innovators.
Additionally, the winners of the Listen To Me National Talent Competition, launching later this Fall, will receive grants, cash and product awards, and performance opportunities to help launch their professional careers in music.

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On April 29, 2011 Songmasters and PJ Clarke’s hosted the True Love Ways event in NYC, which celebrated the genesis and impact of this great song and the love that inspired it. Five hours after they met, Buddy Holly proposed to Maria Elena Santiago at PJ Clarke’s on June 20, 1958 at Table 53 and soon thereafter wrote True Love Ways for her as a wedding gift. At this event, Maria Elena Holly unveiled the never before seen True Love Ways photo of their wedding kiss, now displayed at PJ Clarke’s above the very table where they became engaged. The Buddy Holly Guitar Foundation also presented Peter Asher with the coveted True Love Ways guitar, in recognition that he and his incomparable music partner, Gordon (Waller), made True Love Ways a worldwide sensation and to honor Peter’s longstanding association with Holly’s music as both a producer and performer. This guitar is an identical replica of Holly’s renowned Gibson J-45 guitar and includes one fret from Holly’s original guitar.

At the event, Peter used his True Love Ways guitar to recreate Peter and Gordon’s timeless hit recording of True Love Ways (with a virtual Gordon co-performing). Peter also spoke at the event about his newest Holly project, Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, an album that he is executive producing for Songmasters. This album launches the Listen to Me series, a celebration of the True. Great. Original. artists of contemporary music, featuring today’s greatest performers honoring their musical roots to raise substantial support for the next generation of music makers and entrepreneurs. Featuring Stevie Nicks, Pat Monahan of Train, Brian Wilson, Imelda May, Jackson Browne, Cobra Starship, The Fray, Ringo Starr, Chris Isaak, Linda Ronstadt, Jeff Lynne, Lyle Lovett, Natalie Merchant, Patrick Stump, Zooey Deschanel, and Eric Idle the album is available on Sept 6, 2011.

Continue reading »]]> LX New York’s Jane Hanson visits with Maria Elena Holly at True Love Ways event co-hosted by Songmasters and PJ Clarke’s in NYC on April 28-29, 2011.   The event, held at PJ Clarke’s,  was a tribute to Holly’s  great music and their great romance.  It featured Peter Asher, producer of Listen To Me: Buddy Holly, Maria Elena Holly, (Buddy Holly’s widow) and John Thomas of the Buddy Holly Guitar Foundation,  which awarded Peter Asher the coveted True Love Ways guitar.   PJ Clarke’s also unveiled a never before published photo of Buddy and Maria Elena’s wedding kiss, the True Love Ways photo, which was permanently mounted over Table 53 where Buddy proposed to Maria Elena Santiago on June 20, 1958.  Buddy wrote True Love Ways as a wedding gift for Maria Elena, a song which Peter Asher and his singing partner Gordon Waller made a worldwide sensation in the 1960s.

Continue reading »]]> On April 29  PJ Clarke’s will hold a private tribute to one of the great true love stories in music history, the whirlwind courtship and marriage of Buddy and Maria Elena Holly – which started at PJ Clarke’s on their first date.

PJ Clarke’s is the very spot where Buddy Holly proposed to Maria Elena, whom he had just met that morning, on June 20, 1958. They were married up until his untimely death on February 3, 1959. During Buddy Holly’s short life as a singer, songwriter and musician, he became a musical sensation whose prolific and popular musical legacy is now legendary. Holly was recently rated #13 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the Top 100 rock performers of all time.
Holly wrote the song “True Love Ways” for Maria Elena in celebration of their wedding.  It was later made popular around the world by the English “Mod Duo”, Peter and Gordon. Peter Asher will give a live performance of “True Love Ways” at PJ Clarke’s, onstage, accompanied by original footage of Gordon, now deceased, in an early performance of this song on video.
The Buddy Holly Guitar Foundation, famous for loaning its few existing and highly coveted “Holly Guitars” to outstanding rock musicians, will award Peter Asher a two-year loaner of the “True Love Ways” guitar. Asher will perform using this guitar. Asher has been a lifelong fan of Holly’s work, and has done much throughout his own career to promote and use Holly’s music – through Peter and Gordon’s True Love Ways, with his production of Linda Ronstadt’s classic re-work of Holly’s “It’s So Easy” and now with the upcoming release of his production of Songmasters’ Listen To Me/Buddy Holly album.

The Buddy Holly Guitar Foundation is building eighteen perfect recreations of the 1943 guitar on which Buddy wrote many of his best-known songs. The Foundation lends these instruments, each of which bears one original fret from Buddy’s famous Gibson J-45 guitar, to artists like Peter Asher whom the Foundation’s Board of Directors deem exemplary of Buddy’s artistic vision and who have committed to raising funds for non-profit organizations that support music programs for children.

Songmasters, launching its Listen To Me series celebrating the True. Great. Original. artists of contemporary music this summer, is co-hosting this event. This series features today’s great performers honoring their musical roots to raise substantial support for the next generation of outstanding music makers and entrepreneurs. Benefiting music industry charities include the Grammy Foundation, Artists House, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which will award it second Holly Prize, endowed by Songmasters, in June.

Peter Asher, a multiple Grammy winning producer, is currently music producer for Songmasters’ Listen to Me series, Peter’s first album in the series, Listen to Me/Buddy Holly, includes tracks by Stevie Nicks, The Fray, Jeff Lynne, Natalie Merchant, Patrick Stump, Jackson Browne, Chris Isaak, Cobra Starship, Pat Monahan of Train, Ringo Starr, Imelda May, Brian Wilson and more. The album is scheduled for release around Labor Day.

PJ Clarke’s will also commemorate the famous booth where Holly proposed to Maria Elena, by mounting the  “True Love Ways” photograph, a previously unpublished photo of their wedding kiss.

Peter Asher is also performing at Feinstein’s in New York City, May 3rd through 7th.

(PJ Clarke’s event is for press and invited guests only)