Jerry Allison (born August 31, 1939) is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the Crickets and co-writer of their hits “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue”, recorded with Buddy Holly. (More from Wikipedia)
When a young band or musician is just starting out, they would often come to the recording studio with a handful of finished songs and others that were only partially written. The more experienced record producer or arranger would then help the band flesh out the other songs and, as a result, frequently receive partial credit for having written the songs.
This was also used as a device to compensate the producer. On many of Buddy Holly’s records, their producer Norman Petty is listed as one of the songwriters; and the same is true of Robert ‘Bumps’ Blackwell on those by Little Richard.
Sometimes Buddy Holly himself isn’t credited as a songwriter; that happened with one of his best known recordings, “Peggy Sue”, but at Jerry Allison’s insistence, his name was added to the credits after his death.
(April 2015/1)
