That’ll Be the Day

The first time this idea was recorded was in July 1956, in Nashville, with Buddy Holly and a group called The Three Tunes. However, the Decca Records label, which was no longer very satisfied with Holly's previous singles, decided not to release those recordings. Months later, in February 1957, Holly and his new band, The Crickets, re-recorded the song in Norman Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. This second version, released by Brunswick Records, was the one that truly took off. Despite Holly's contract with Decca preventing him from re-recording material from the 1956 session, his producer, Norman Petty, found a way around it by crediting The Crickets as the main performers for the new label, which in turn was a subsidiary of Decca. This version was included on The Crickets' debut album, *The "Chirping" Crickets*, released in November 1957. The recording was done live, with all musicians playing together, without later touch-ups. The success of this 1957 version was considerable. It achieved gold record status in the United States for selling over a million copies, an achievement recognized in 1969. The song has also received important honors over time: it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and in 2005 it was included in the National Recording Registry, a list highlighting recordings of cultural, historical, or aesthetic value to the United States. Furthermore, the 1957 recording of *That’ll Be the Day* appeared on the soundtrack of George Lucas's 1973 film *American Graffiti*, an album that reached number one on the Billboard charts and was certified triple platinum. Even the original 1956 version, which Decca had been unwilling to release at the time, ended up being issued as a single in September 1957, although it did not manage to chart.