HE'S hailed as the premier Buddy Holly performer in the world today, but there was one remark made to Scott Cameron by the real life Peggy Sue which the young Australian cherishes more than any review.
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It was 2009, and Cameron was starring in the Australian production of the musical Buddy! The Buddy Holly Story.
Before a performance one night, Cameron was out at dinner with fellow cast members, and Peggy Sue Gerron - Buddy's former high school friend, Jerry Allison's former wife, and the inspiration for that song - when Peggy Sue noticed something.
"I was sitting down eating and I just started swinging back on my chair and laughing at something," Cameron recalls.
"Apparently that just drew Peggy back to something that Buddy used to do.
"Without meaning to be disrespectful, she said to me: 'You've got the same table manners that Buddy had!'
"That comment always stuck with me because it was funny, and because I'd done something that took her back, and made her happy because it reminded her of Buddy.
"It was just me being myself, but in a way it was the ultimate compliment."
Cameron has embarked on a national tour, Buddy: In Concert, celebrating 60 years since Holly's arrival as a star.
The tour stops at Laycock Street Theatre, Gosford, this Saturday night, October 3.
Cameron has been performing as Buddy Holly for more than a decade.
He said donning the horn-rimmed glasses for every performance was the start of a magical transformation.
"It's kind of like the reverse of Clark Kent becoming Superman. I put the glasses on to become the superhero," he said.
Every concert enables Cameron to revisit the joyous naivety of Holly's early songs, the incredible showman that he was to become, and the maturity of his later works.
The new concerts aim to lay out the musical road map that got Holly started, then the trail Holly blazed over perhaps the most prolific and influential 18 months in music history.
"We're taking audiences on a journey. In the first act we play some of the music from the early days that Buddy listened to, and the songs that got him into writing," Cameron said.
The band calls it the jukebox section of the show.
It includes some of rock'n'roll's greatest hits from the 1950s from artists such as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley.
"Then in the second act, that's when the Crickets have become famous and popular, and we play all of their hit songs."
■ Tickets cost $65 for adults.
Book on 4323 3233.
