Down the Line: Buddy Holly

WHEN THE FIRST gentle notes ring from Buddy Holly's acoustic guitar on his cover of Mickey & Sylvia's 'Dearest', you could swear it was recorded yesterday at some indie-rock joint in the East Village. Stripped of the '50s-style production and lush orchestration that nearly drown some of Holly's posthumously released tunes, like 'Raining in My Heart' and 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore', the songs he recorded on a tape machine in his Manhattan apartment just days before his death sound as timeless and immediate as stripped-down Dylan, Lou Barlow or Bright Eyes.