SONG BUDDY HOLLY'S DRUMMER TAUGHT US

Poor ol' Johnny O'Keefe (above). There's possibly only one song of his that you might know, though likely from a cover. "Wild One", often re-titled "Real Wild Child" or "Real Wild Child (Wild One)", or whatever you want to call it, has been recorded by everybody and their mother. Ivan (Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Buddy Holly's Crickets), Jerry Lee Lewis, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett, Def Leppard and so on. It's likely that most can be traced back to Ivan's (Allison's) version. The grapevine was not as effective as it is today. Chances are few people in the U.S. would have heard O'Keefe's original version. It was 1958 and O'Keefe was from Australia. Fat chance that had in a U.S. playing field that included all the heavies, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Elvis and so on. Allison had only heard it when Buddy Holly and the Crickets toured with O'Keefe in Australia. It was just dangling there, ripe for the picking. I'd like to think that Allison suggested it to Holly but Holly declined it because, well, what with the glasses and all, could he even be a convincing wild child? Why Allison chose the name Ivan is anybody's guess.

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Listen:
Johnny O'Keefe - Wild One mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Ivan - Real Wild Child mp3 at Diddy Wah
Jerry Lee Lewis - Real Wild Child (Wild One) (streaming) at YouTube
Iggy Pop - Real Wild Child mp3 at Probe is Turning-On the People