The teenager ended up marrying the drummer for Holly’s band, The Crickets. Peggy Sue Gerron, who as a teenager inspired one of Buddy Holly’s…
The teenager ended up marrying the drummer for Holly’s band, The Crickets.
Peggy Sue Gerron, who as a teenager inspired one of Buddy Holly’s most iconic songs, died in Texas this week at the age of 78.
The two ran into each other again — this time, figuratively — a short time later when Gerron was on a date with Jerry Allison, the drummer for Holly’s band, the Crickets. They saw Buddy Holly, who was on a date of his own, and the singer joked about their initial encounter.
The song that bore her name was originally called “Cindy Lou,” after Holly’s niece, but Allison lobbied for them to change it to “Peggy Sue” to impress his girlfriend. It worked.
Peggy Sue Gerron eventually married Allison, and spent time on the road with the band after Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. They would divorce in the 1960s, and Peggy Sue remarried and moved back to California. She eventually moved back to Lubbock in the 1990s to care for her mother — and published a memoir in 2008 about her time in the spotlight.
The Texas woman who inspired the 1958 Buddy Holly song “Peggy Sue” has died at a Lubbock hospital. https://t.co/Ms1XeExEGC
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) October 2,2018
In her later years, Gerron became a ham radio enthusiast and still enjoyed connecting with fans who remember her from the Buddy Holly song.
Peggy Sue Gerron died in a hospital in Lubbock surrounded by family.
