Jerry Naylor

Born Jerry Naylor Jackson on 6 March 1939 in Stephenville, Texas, he took up country singing in childhood and reached The Louisiana Hayride by age fourteen. Service in the US Army left him with a broken back whose effects have never fully left. After meeting Glen Campbell in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he followed him to Hollywood, where he worked as a disc jockey and saw his single ‘You’re Thirteen’ issued in Britain in 1961. Two years later he entered the Crickets, Buddy Holly’s former band, and appeared on the Liberty Records sides they cut at that time. A heart attack struck in 1964; Naylor has attributed it to “the stress of being Buddy Holly’s replacement.” In 1966 he took the principal part on the country-opera concept album The Legend Of Johnny Brown. He rejoined the Crickets for their 1971 LP Rockin’ 50s Rock ‘N’ Roll, yet most of his recording was done as a solo artist, yielding many singles for American imprints that included Motown’s country subsidiary. His most familiar track remains the 1975 release ‘Is This All There Is To A Honky Tonk?’ Today he works in television, public relations and as a disc jockey in Agoura, California. Buddy Holly enthusiasts know him for bold assertions that he belonged to the Crickets during their entire hit-making period, yet he received induction into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame in 2000.