In February 1957 he recorded a demo version of one of his songs, ‘All My Love’. The song was picked up by Buddy Holly and the Crickets, who recorded it under the new title of ‘Oh Boy!’ in the middle of 1957 at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, with the Picks providing backing vocals. ‘Oh, Boy!’ went to number ten for Buddy and the Crickets in the US, number three in the UK and featured on the album The ‘Chirping’ Crickets.

A year later, the band recorded another song written by Sonny, ‘Rave On’, which Bruce Springsteen has cited as one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time. Springsteen even claims to pump himself up before concerts by singing it backstage. There have been over 60 covers of the song.

Sonny West was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2016. He died in 2022. 

John Firminger