Lubbock museums. 24th October 2025.
On September 7th 1936 Charles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock Texas, known professionally as Buddy Holly he became one of the most influential figures in the pop music business. Today our first port of call was the museum celebrating his short life.
Outside the building stands a giant pair of spectacles, the iconic symbol of this music pioneer,which gave an obvious photo opportunity.
Inside the museum exhibits set out Buddy’s timeline from a young children through his first guitar and beginnings in the music industry. He was obviously a musical prodigy as in addition to guitar he played violin and banjo. Further memorabilia showed how his attendance at an early Elvis Presley concert inspired him to move away from country music towards rock ‘n’ roll.
Various concert programmes and posters highlighted his performances in Australia and the U.K. through to that fateful night in January 1959 when his plane crashed. There were many priceless artefacts of his life with the star exhibit, in my view, of his Fender Stratocaster that gave him his distinctive guitar sound. Unfortunately no photographs were allowed inside the museum but it was a tremendous way to start the day.
Opposite the museum was a statue of Holly together with a Wall of Fame of Texan artists many who featured on the mural in Alpine that I posted a few days ago.
The second museum of the day was the National Ranching Heritage Center which is situated across the city. Driving through Lubbock is very easy especially with a good sat-nav, I’m not so sure it would be so easy without!
The museum itself is set on a 27 acre park and comprises some fifty plus buildings that highlight the history of ranching in Texas. Leading in to the park is a series of bronze statues of cattle and cowboys herding them which really sets the scene.
The buildings moved from primitive adobe type structures through to some very ornate farm dwellings along a 1.5 mile walk, which under today’s cloudy skies was very pleasant.
As we walked along the paths various sound effects ranging from cattle noises to horses neighing and as we approached the station some very realistic train whistles.
All in all a very enjoyable visit.
We drove back into the centre for a spot of lunch at a favourite student haunt called Spanky’s, a real American burger joint. I had a chicken burger with Swiss and mushrooms while Sylvia went for a cheeseburger, both served with fries. Very tasty and very filling.
After lunch Sylvia returned to the hotel while I went in search of yet another museum, this time the Museum of Texas Tech University. This was on the same site as this mornings ranch museum and contained a series of exhibits including dinosaur skeletons,
a exhibition about Japanese motorbikes,
a Nancy Johnson fashion exhibit
but most importantly, in my opinion, an exhibition of the art in guitars.
A collection of some fifty or so guitars showed how the design of electric guitars through the ages could be considered an art form. Some designs were very much off the wall but included the famous 12 string Rickenbacker and the Fender Stratocaster.
So I did manage to get a photo of one!
Tomorrow we move onto Amarillo, that is if someone can show us the way!