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The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day is a little passel of facts about Buddy Holly:

1) The very first song recorded by the band that would become known as The Beatles was by Texan Buddy Holly. In 1958, The Quarrymen --- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Colin Hanton on drums and John "Duff" Lowe, on piano ---- recorded "That'll Be the Day."

2) Similarly, one of the very first songs recorded by the Rolling Stones was Buddy's "Not Fade Away."

3) Buddy Holly once handmade a leather wallet for Marty Robbins. Robbins' manager was so impressed he asked Buddy if he could order 300 more. Buddy, of course, had no time for that.

4) I'd always known that Buddy was a huge Elvis fan and would go and see Elvis perform when Elvis played in Lubbock. What I didn't know was that Buddy, who was relentlessly ambitious, made a point of befriending Elvis. “Meeting Elvis was what really inspired Buddy to get things going,” said Bob Montgomery. “Every time he’d come through, we’d talk to him. We saw Gentle­men Prefer Blondes with him one after­noon at the theater and Elvis got bored af­ter thirty minutes and we left with him.” Bob Montgomery was a songwriting partner and best friend of Buddy Holly, performing with Buddy as the duo "Buddy and Bob" while teenagers in high school. Initially, they played a variety of bluegrass music, which evolved into rockabilly sounds.

5) Between February 1957 and April 1958, 14 months, Buddy recorded “That’ll Be the Day,” “Not Fade Away,” “Peggy Sue,” “Oh Boy!,” “Rave On,” “Well… All Right,” and “It’s So Easy (to fall in love). Every one of them is a timeless classic.

Shown here: Buddy Holly without his glasses in 1957.