Published: October 19, 2009 01:30 pm      

Butterfield celebrates 30 years with rockin' party

The Gainesville Civic Center was rockin’ Saturday night when the Butterfield Stage Players, donors and staff members celebrated the organization’s 30th anniversary.

Slicked back hair, blue jeans, poodle skirts and saddle shoes were the order of the day as guests dined on 50s fare and danced to the music of John Mueller’s Winter Dance Party.

Styled after the ill-fated final performances of 1950s teen idols Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr. — better known as the Big Bopper, Richie Valens and Buddy Holly, Winter Dance Party took guests on a musical journey that prompted many in the crowd to get up and dance.

The event also gave Butterfield Executive Director Tamara Broyles a chance to pass out Trail Blazer awards to some Butterfield pioneers including Monica Hess, Tom Carson, Rodger Boyce and Earl Williams.

The curtain has been raised over 2,000 times for Butterfield productions.

“Butterfield is a wonderful thing,” Boyce said of the community theater located in the historic building which once housed Gainesville’s Carnegie library.

Turning the empty building into a theater was not an easy task.

“A lot of people worked very hard and very long...under arduous conditions,” said Earl Williams who helped procure “seed” money for the project when he was general manager of Weber Aircraft.

“I come from a background of people interested in theater,” he said.

Williams pointed out that Gainesville residents have always demonstrated a hunger for community theater.

“Over 200 people showed up for the first casting call,” he noted.

Nostalgic music was the highlight of the evening.

The Studebakers got things rolling during the cocktail hour and dinner hour.

By the time the Last Winter Dance Party took the stage, guests were in full memory lane mode.

Holly’s widow Maria Elena Holly Santiago was a special guest amid the joy and the dancing and the party atmosphere.

In a previous Register story, Santiago said for decades, she avoided connecting with anything that would remind her of Buddy Holly. It was difficult for her to be around Buddy Holly’s fans, she said.

Today she works to keep his music alive.

Each year, she travels all over the world to speak and meet his fans. John Mueller’s Winter Dance Party is the only Buddy Holly tribute band she sanctions.

“The thing about John is that he doesn’t try to imitate Buddy,” said Santiago of the man who performs as Holly. “He plays Buddy’s music and he does it well...but he has his own way of singing. He’s a fantastic singer, a good guitar player and a very, very nice person. He has all the ingredients of someone I would sanction to perform as Buddy. He’s the only one that I have done that for. There are others out there that do Buddy, but I have nothing to do with that. John is the only one.”

Winter Dance Party begin in 1999 around the same time as the 40th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s final tour, which was called Winter Dance Party.

“We thought we would go to all the original venues and do the exact same tour in the exact same order as they did,” said John Mueller. “It just about killed us all because there was no time to rest. It was dangerous.”

The show took many guests back to their teen years including some who wore their high school letter jackets and senior rings.

It was also a tribute to the three young musicians who died that cold night in 1959.

“Buddy Holly lives every time somebody sings one of his songs. It is a legacy,” said music fan Vivian Thomlinson.