Lubbock: Lubbock High School

Lubbock High School on 19th Street produced two of the most important figures in 1950s American music. One wrote the songs that defined Elvis Presley’s late career. The other played bass in Buddy Holly’s band. The songwriter was Mac Davis. The bassist was Joe B. Mauldin, co-founder of The Crickets with Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison. They attended this same school in the same flat West Texas city, a few years apart.

Mac Davis was born in Lubbock on January 21, 1942. He grew up at College Courts, his father’s apartment complex downtown. His father bought him a guitar at nine. He graduated from Lubbock High at sixteen and moved to Atlanta, then Los Angeles. As a songwriter, Davis placed seven songs with Elvis Presley. Among them were “In the Ghetto,” “Don’t Cry Daddy,” “Memories,” and “A Little Less Conversation.” He wrote “In the Ghetto” about a childhood memory from Lubbock — a Black friend’s neighborhood that left an impression he never forgot.

Joe B. Mauldin and the Beat Behind Buddy Holly

Joe B. Mauldin joined Buddy Holly and Jerry Ivan Allison to form The Crickets in 1957. He played electric bass on “That’ll Be the Day,” “Oh, Boy!,” “Peggy Sue,” and the rest of the Crickets’ catalog. He was part of the Winter Dance Party tour in February 1959. He did not board the plane that crashed north of Clear Lake, Iowa. The crash killed Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. Mauldin stayed connected to the Crickets for decades. He went to high school here, on 19th Street in Lubbock.

The two Lubbock high schools tell two different chapters of the same story. Monterey High School produced the Lubbock Mafia — Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock. Lubbock High on 19th Street produced a songwriter for Elvis and a bassist for Buddy Holly. Both schools sat in the same flat, wind-blown city. That city was producing something extraordinary, whether it knew it or not.