A TRIBUTE to American legend Buddy Holly comes to the Thameside Theatre in Grays later this month.

Buddy Holly and the Cricketers is in its 20th year and still going strong.

The cast will be at the theatre, in Orsett Road, from 7.45pm on Saturday, January 26.

A spokesman for the Thameside said the show is sure to get the audience up and dancing.

He said: “From an era when the stars worked together and influenced each other, this show features all of Buddy’s classics plus the greatest hits from the legends of the 1950s and 1960s including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Little Richard and The Beatles.

“Starring some of the finest and most talented actor-musicians in the business, whose combined West End credits include Buddy, Lennon, Return to the Forbidden Planet, Jailhouse Rock and Sunday In The Park With George, this fast, furious and funny roller-coaster of a concert always has audiences on their feet singing along to the music and dancing in the aisles.”

Buddy Holly wrote some of the biggest rock n’ roll classics of all time, including That’ll Be The Day, Oh Boy, True Love Ways, Peggy Sue and Rave On. Born in Texas in September 1936, Holly learned to play the fiddle and the piano at a young age and produced his first home recording in 1949.

After high school, he formed a band and played country and western songs regularly on a radio station in his hometown.

His road to stardom started when he opened for Elvis Presley in 1955.

A record company talent scout saw Holly’s act at a skating rink soon after and signed him to a contract.

Holly and his band began recording demos and singles in Nashville under the name Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes in early 1956.

The line-up was later revised and dubbed the Crickets, and Holly wrote and recorded his hit That’ll Be the Day with the Crickets in 1957. The band charted seven different Top 40 singles between August 1957 and August 1958.

That’ll Be the Day topped the US chart exactly 500 days before Holly’s untimely death in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 22.

Tickets for the show are £19.50, reduced to £18.50 for children under-16 and £18 when booking groups of four or more.

Call the Thameside Theatre box office on 0845 3005264.