The Rainmakers Official Site

Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue  lyrics by Sir Tim Rice, music by Bobby Vee and the Vees

This past week marked the 54th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper.    When I was starting out, I never really listened to Buddy Holly, other than “That’ll Be the Day” occasionally on the radio.   When I had my first band, we were Beatles worshippers, studying their records like textbooks.   A guy a bit older than me stopped by my family’s burger joint where I was making ice cream cones and said, “You know, they learned a whole lot from Buddy Holly.”  I thought, “Yeah, sure.”     A few years later I somehow ended up with a greatest hits reissue album.   Changed my life, changed my idea of history.  Buddy  –  and very importantly  –  his band the Crickets  –  Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Nikki Sullivan  –  were smart guys out in the middle of nowhere who happened to have access to a recording studio a few hours aways, a creative engineer/producer, Norman Petty  –  and nobody looking over their shoulders.   With imagination and time to experiment, they pretty much invented the recording studio as a place to create, rather than just document music.   The songs are simple and cool, the arrangements really thoughtful, the shaping of the sound by using (mis-using) EQ, reverb, doubling  –  those guys did it first.

My wife and I got to go to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Iowa 4 years ago for the 50th anniversary of Buddy’s final show.   At the stroke of midnight, all the lights went out, and over the sound system came Buddy’s voice, “Just you know why. . .”

And I grabbed Michele and we slow danced.  As did everyone else.

Thanks Buddy.

Hello Friends,        2012 was a great year for the band, as our reunion tour has now just become the ongoing next chapter of the band’s existence. We did 2 tours of Norway in January and June, many gigs around the Midwest, and fun holiday shows at the Record Bar and Knuckleheads in KC.

So what’s next? We won’t return to Norway in 2013. But we will be working on a new album. All we have to do is write and record it. Simple. It’s my desire to approach this next album differently. 25 ON was great fun to make – fast and easy and comfortable. And the songwriting was a nice look backwards and forwards. But I want the next album to be a push in a forward direction, reflecting the new-found/re-found energy of our live shows. We’re going to try to co-write songs, and pool writing ideas at early stages of the game – instead of just letting the control-freak lead singer bring in all of his whiny tunes and expect everyone to learn them.

Right now, we have no gigs on the books  –  which is a weird feeling.  But I believe that we’re hearing the right beat of the universe, and the start of the next dance will be obvious to us.   You just have to be paying attention.

And –  start saving your money for the FRIENDS AND FANS AND FAMILY tour of Norway in Summer 2014.

Later,     Bob

Hey, we’ve got a new page called “Long Gone Long” featuring vintage printed matter about The Rainmakers. Adding to the library we have issue no. 1 of the fanzine “From the Other Side of the World”. So sit back and enjoy the experience of keeping up with The Rainmakers back in the days before the internet and Facebook.

Here is a 1994 article about the Rainmakers from Image, the journal for students of English in Norway. It was written by Stian Omland, then a student, now friend and Norwegian tour manager for the band.

The article is in PDF format. Clicking on the link will either open the file in your browser or download it to your machine, depending on your settings.