Famed singer-songwriter, former member of The Crickets, and mentor in Lubbock’s music scene, Sonny Curtis died at 88 years old, on Sept. 19, 2025.
Curtis was born at the end of the Dust Bowl, in 1937. He grew up on a cotton farm in Meadow, Texas, less than 30 miles southwest of Lubbock.
Working the fields and driving a tractor all day long gave Curtis time to think and to write his songs, explained Jacqueline Bober, the City of Lubbock’s municipal museums director. In her role with the Buddy Holly Center, she met Curtis a number of times and has studied The Crickets’ careers.
She said Curtis started playing music and writing songs at a young age. His uncles, who together formed the bluegrass band The Mayfield Brothers, taught him to play guitar, banjo, and fiddle.
He and his brothers, Pete and Dean, created their own bluegrass trio, playing county fairs, radio stations, and small stages in the area.
Andy Wilkinson is an area-writer and performer, as well as an admirer and friend of Sonny Curtis. He said it was while hitchhiking from Meadow to Lubbock to play music that he met Buddy Holly, J.I. Allison, and Joe B. Maudlin.
Playing with Holly and other musicians expanded Curtis’ musical range. Bober said Curtis and Holly bonded over their appreciation for music that was harder to come by in Lubbock at the time, such as rhythm and blues.
“Come midnight, they would have to go out to the car and turn the car radio on to listen to some shows that come out of Louisiana, Mississippi, that would play that type of music, and just listen to it till they fell asleep, because it was so wonderful,” she said.
Curtis, Holly, and fellow musicians like Bob Montgomery and Don Guess, were soon recruited to open for artists like Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.
“That even further broadened their horizons into this new genre of developing music that we call rock and roll,” Bober said.
Curtis stepped away from the group to tour with country star Slim Whitman. He rejoined the group under the name The Crickets in 1958. One year later, while on his Winter Dance Party Tour, Buddy Holly – along with musicians Richie Valens, J.P. Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson – died in a plane crash
It was at the childhood home of fellow Cricket J.I. Allison that the band learned of Holly’s death. The band was staying in Lubbock after a recording session in Clovis.
According to Sonny Curtis’ website, it was in this period that he wrote what he called his most important copyright: “I Fought the Law.”
“That's incredible,” said fellow musician Andy Wilkinson. “I mean, for goodness sakes, for a farm kid from Meadow to have a song covered by The Clash is sort of cosmic.”
Other groups to have covered the song include The Bobby Fuller Four, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, and many more.
At 21 years old, Curtis was drafted into the Army and temporarily left The Crickets, but he continued writing music, including “Walk Right Back,” which was performed by The Everly Brothers.
After his service, Curtis rejoined The Crickets, did work writing commercial jingles, and continued to write songs throughout his career.
Another one of Curtis’ most recognizable songs is “Love Is All Around,” the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Bober said that Curtis worked to record the song himself, rather than have another musician come in. The song had two versions, one for the first few episodes, and another for the rest of the series.
In his career, Curtis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with The Crickets, and had several songs win awards of their own.
Through it all, Wilkinson said Curtis was a mentor and friend to anyone who needed it.
“He was the kind of person that would introduce you to people. Would tell people to come out and hear you play,” Wilkinson remembered. “He was willing to play on your record. You know, I was a nobody, and he played on my record.”
He said Curtis had a hopeful and refreshing perspective on a business that’s hard to succeed in.
Being a prolific songwriter, Wilkinson recalled asking Curtis what he had to do to:
“And he said, ‘Well, let me tell you, just because I have hit songs doesn't mean they think I'm important when I walk in that door. I'm no more important than you are. They want to know what I have that minute, and same with you. So you just got to play your songs for everybody that will sit still and listen.’ And I thought, man, that is, that is practical advice. That's not some arcane, highfalutin sort of prescription or formula for how to, you know, get into business. You know, that's just hard work. Here's what you do, and you're never a big deal. You're only what you're doing at the moment.”
Bober remembers Curtis as someone who stayed humble, connected to his roots, and as “one of the sweetest human beings I have ever had the fortune to meet and visit with.”
She said determination and hard work put in by Curtis and The Crickets is something she regularly talks about with visitors to the Buddy Holly Center, especially young people.
According to Wilkinson, Curtis’ kindness and collaboration is reflected in the arts scene on the South Plains even today.
“The fact is that out on the frontier, you have to rely on people, whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether they're the same color, the same ethnicity, the same language, the same politics, the same religion,” he explained. “You have to be neighbors with people, and that neighboring, I think, extends to the arts.”
In addition to being a great writer, singer, and guitar player, Wilkinson remembers Curtis as “one of the kindest, nicest human beings on the planet.” And someone he never saw frown in all the years they knew each other.
“He was just a gem of a human being,” Wilkinson said “And that made it all the better.”
Curtis died of pneumonia at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee at 88 years old. His wife and daughter were with him.
Curtis’ daughter, Sarah Curtis, said on social media that her father lived an exceptional life, one that touched many hearts.
“May we look at his life with joy rather than sadness. He would have wanted that,” she encouraged.
Sarah Curtis has detailed her father’s life and her relationship with him in her book Daughter of a Song. The biography/memoir is available for sale and Sarah Curtis will be in Lubbock to discuss it at Texas Tech University Press’s annual fundraiser, Literary Lubbock, on Nov. 11.
