Norman Petty Recording Studios Clovis

The studio worked at night. Seventh Street was the main road through Clovis, and its daytime traffic noise pushed sessions into the dark, which is when Holly and the band cut the song on February 25, 1957. The band name was itself a workaround: Holly's Decca contract barred him from re-recording the song, so Petty credited the Crickets. He also took a co-writer's credit he had not earned. Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox and the Fireballs recorded here too, and the room, its original equipment still inside, opens for tours by appointment.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Norman Petty Recording Studios Clovis At thirteen, Norman began cutting records in his father's filling station. With money earned from the Norman Petty Trio's "Mood Indigo", Petty converted a family grocery store next door into a modern recording studio where he experimented with echo and microphone settings. In 1957, Petty made rock'n'roll history recording Buddy Holly and the Crickets' "That'll Be The Day." The sound influenced a generation.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blackwater Draw — 9.9 mi
  The site between Clovis and Portales that gave the Clovis culture its name, found by a nineteen-year-old in 1929 and dug for decades inside a working gravel pit.

More markers nearby

• Ida O. Jackson — 1.1 mi
• Clovis — 9.5 mi
• Blackwater Draw — 11 mi
• Rose Powers White — 11 mi