Lubbock: KDAV Radio

When Waylon Jennings arrived at KDAV Radio in Lubbock, he stepped into the most consequential friendship of his early life. KDAV was Buddy Holly’s home station, and Waylon worked there as a disc jockey through the late 1950s — spinning records, learning the music business, and absorbing the talent around him in a city that was quietly becoming one of the most creative corners of American popular music.

In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Waylon Jennings’s first recording session — a cover of “Jole Blon” — through his connections in the Lubbock music scene. That same year, Holly hired Waylon to play bass guitar for the Winter Dance Party tour. The tour ended in tragedy on February 3, 1959, when Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson died in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. Waylon had given up his seat on the plane to Richardson, a decision that weighed on him for the rest of his life.

The cultural complex that grew around Holly’s legacy in Lubbock — including the Buddy Holly Center at 1801 Crickets Avenue — stands as a testament to the Lubbock sound that Waylon helped shape alongside Holly, Joe Ely, and others who came up through the city’s radio stations and dance halls in the 1950s.