But it all comes back to Buddy, one of the first American artists he heard as a teenager growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England.

Mark speaks often of his formative influences as a would-be guitar player, such as Hank Marvin and Duane Eddy, who inspired him endlessly as he pressed his nose against the window of local instrument shops. But when that first wave of rock and roll came crashing across the Atlantic and into his front room, there was nothing quite like Charles Hardin Holley and the golden songbook he created in little more than 18 months.

Many years later, on the multi-artist 1996 tribute album Not Fade Away, Mark had the opportunity to pay his respects to Buddy in a poignant collaboration. He played beautifully on a warm and tender remake of ‘Learning the Game’ with vocals by Buddy’s great friend and collaborator and latter-day country giant Waylon Jennings, who of course narrowly avoided that fateful accident on the day the music died. Mark was delighted when Waylon told him that they had nailed the song definitively. 

Paul Sexton