He was just a kid from Lubbock, Texas, sporting black horn-rimmed glasses, blue jeans, a white T-shirt, white socks and loafers. And he changed the course of music history.

Gary W. Moore, the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of Playing with the Enemy, was never confused with real Buddy Holly fans. Gary was not a fan of rock music or what he believed it represented in our culture. He was familiar with Buddy’s name and thought he was dead, but he couldn’t name a single song Buddy had written or performed. In a single evening all that changed when the late great Buddy Holly reached out from a stage in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and seized Gary’s heart and soul through a song. Not a song written or performed by Buddy, but a song about Buddy performed by musician extraordinaire John Mueller.

Hey Buddy: In Pursuit of Buddy Holly, My New Buddy John, and My Lost Decade of Music is a warm and intimate chronicle of the author’s personal journey to discover more about Buddy himself, his music, his influence, and the times in which he lived. Join Gary as he meets Buddy’s personal friends and family members, celebrities, and everyday Buddy enthusiasts. Their unique and intimate stories will make you laugh, smile, cry and think, all the while wondering “what if?” What if Buddy had lived instead of perished in that terrible plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, on that winter night in 1959? What if Buddy had continued to write music into the 1960s and 70s?

His dramatic and enduring legacy influenced everyone from the Beatles and The Rolling Stones to writers, fans, and John Mueller, who took the stage in Iowa one cold night not too long ago to recreate the Winter Dance Party of 1959, and in doing so, influenced an author to pick up his pen and explore a legacy that still affects us today.