The truth is that I’ve been to Lubbock, Texas, only once – flying into its airport, having coffee in a small cafe with a friend, and then driving two hours to the West and into New Mexico, where I visited that friend at Eastern New Mexico University in Portalis. Ever since, I’ve wondered what I missed in the birthplace of legendary rock and roller, Buddy Holly. One day, I’m sure, I’ll return, settle into one of the hotels Lubbock has available for its tourists, and take a better look at this city and the Buddy Holly Center.
The Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock has a mission to provide programs and exhibits on Texas Music and contemporary visual arts. One of its goals is to help encourage public interest where art and music come together, helping to build the creative community.  The center preserves and collects artifacts that relate to Buddy Holly as well as other performing artists in West Texas. Currently, the center is presenting Buddy’s Bedroom, an exhibit that opened just a few weeks ago in the Texas Musicians Hall of Fame. If you go, you’ll be able to see Holly’s bedroom suite as it was in 1955, complete with bed, bookcase headboard, a dresser and a mirror. The furniture was purchased by Buddy Holly’s parents and remained at their home in Lubbock until the 1990s; for last ten years, the furniture was in the hands of private collectors. Recently, in September 2009, Civic Lubbock, Incorporated, bought the furniture from a Wisconsin collector and gave it to the Center, putting it on permanent loan.
Considered a pioneer of rock, Buddy Holly was born as Charles Hardin Holley in 1936 and died in an airplane crash in 1959 at the age of 23, after a year and a half as a successful musician. Some critics have called him one of the most influential forces of creativity in rock and roll and his influence spread among a great variety of groups, including The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and many others. As recently as 2004, Holly was ranked number thirteen by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the fifty greatest artists of all time. If you’re traveling to or through Lubbock, you may well choose to stay a few days and explore these early days of rock and roll history.