True love has twists and turns, bumps and grinds

Charles Hardin Holley met Echo Elaine McGuire when they were classmates in the fourth grade in Lubbock, Texas. They stuck and became high school sweethearts, graduating from Lubbock High School in 1955.

They were quite an interesting couple, noted William Kerns of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Holley stood a gawky 6-foot tall and was a so-so student. McGuire was a 5-foot tall dynamo and an “all-A” student. One of their favorite dating venues was the Hi-D-Ho Drive-In.

After graduation, Holley stayed in town, pursuing a career as a rock’n’roll artist. His stage name became Buddy Holly.

McGuire went off to college at Abilene Christian University, about 160 miles away from Lubbock. She and Buddy struggled to maintain a long-distance relationship.

For her sophomore year, Echo McGuire transferred to York (Neb.) College, affiliated with the Churches of Christ, located about 665 miles north of Lubbock.

The additional miles only magnified the challenge, but Holly continued to faithfully send her love letters, sealed with a kiss.

But one day it happened. In the registrar’s office on the York campus, McGuire met fellow student Ron Griffith from Thayer, Mo. She and Griffith began to see one another. McGuire said they “shared many ideas, goals and Christian interests.” She broke things off with Buddy Holly.

McGuire told Texas Monthly reporter Joe Nick Patoski: “I felt like I’ve had the call of God all my life. Buddy and I were headed in different directions.”

A Buddy Holly biographer, Randy Steele of Fort Worth, Texas, commented: “Echo was devoted to the church and Christian causes. Buddy was into country and rock music.”

Ron Griffith was a music education major at York. Echo McGuire and Ron Griffith were married on Valentine’s Day in 1958. Each went on to earn a master’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales. They embarked on careers as professional educators, made their home Carlsbad, N.M., and had three children.

At one point, the Griffiths formed a singing duo and featured Buddy Holly tunes. Echo would wear a treasured gold necklace that Buddy had bought for her before he died (at age 22 in the tragic airplane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, after a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa). Holly’s brother, Larry Holley, delivered the necklace to Echo…in due time.

The Griffiths were business partners, too. They formed Lifescope, an international ministry.

Echo McGuire Griffith died Oct. 29, 2017, at age 80.

Buddy Holly biographers say he never dagnabbit stopped loving Echo, although he took María Elena Santiago of San Juan, Puerto Rico, as his bride on Aug. 15, 1958.

Buddy and Maria moved into the swanky Brevoort Apartments in Greenwich Village in New York City.

Julian Lloyd Webber of The Daily Telegraph in London, England, says one of rock’n’roll’s great discoveries is the Buddy Holly “apartment tapes.” Holly made these recordings at home in December 1958, “just before his departure on the fateful Winter Dance Party.”

Most of the final tracks are “themes of lost love” and “clearly reveal that Holly was not a happy Buddy. The abject misery of Holly’s lyrics hardly conjures a picture of domestic bliss,” Webber wrote.

There were six new songs on those tapes, released in June 1959 by Coral Records.

In “What to Do,” the break-up is haunting, and Holly knows his “heartache is showing.” The song “That Makes it Tough” reflects the challenges of carrying on and picking up the pieces “when you tell me you don’t love me.”

Webber said: “The longing continues in ‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’ that you’ll come back; you’re the one I love; and I think about you all the time.”

“The last to be recorded, ‘Learning the Game,’ sees Buddy resigned to his fate: ‘Hearts that are broken; and love that’s untrue; these go with learning the game.’”

Vicky Billington Pickering, a Lubbock classmate friend of Buddy and Echo, once commented: “It is interesting to read the lyrics to some of Buddy’s apartment songs and ponder to whom they might apply.”

Do you hear an echo?