Norman Petty Studios: Where Rock and Roll Was Recorded

In the small city of Clovis, New Mexico, Norman Petty ran a recording studio that punched far above its weight in American music history. Petty started young, cutting records in his father's filling station. He used earnings from the Norman Petty Trio's hit recording of Mood Indigo to convert a former grocery store next door into a fully equipped studio with innovative echo chambers and tape-delay techniques that gave records a distinctive, spacious sound.

In nineteen fifty-seven, a young singer from Lubbock, Texas, named Buddy Holly drove to Clovis and recorded That'll Be the Day at Petty's studio. It reached number one. Holly and Petty went on to record Peggy Sue, Not Fade Away, and other songs that shaped rock and roll. The studio still stands and gives tours today, a remarkable survivor in a small eastern New Mexico town near the Texas line.