Ivor Fisher With The Satellites - Lookie, Lookie, Lookie (1960)

(Ronnie Smith - Carl Bunch - Norman Petty )
 New Zealand

Single on Viking February 1960 by Paul “Ivor” Fisher, founding member of popular rock’n’roll band The Satellites, based in Hamilton in New Zealand’s Waikato region, location of a thriving late-50s to early-60s rockn’roll scene.

From the mid-60s Fisher worked in Australia for four years, reverting to Paul Fisher for appearances at clubs and on TV. After returning to New Zealand in 1968 he was signed to HMV and had his own TV show Just Paul.

See also The Reataz With The Satellites – Daddy Cool (1960)

Sources, further reading: 1. Paul ‘Ivor’ Fisher at Bruce Sergent’s NZ music site. 2. Andrew Schmidt, Early Waikato and Hamilton rock and roll at AudioCulture | Iwi Waiata.

Ronnie Smith - Lookie, Lookie, Lookie (1959)

(Ronnie Smith - Carl Bunch - Norman Petty )
 USA

B-side on Brunswick June 1959 with A Tiny Kiss on the A-side. Recorded at Norman Petty’s studios in Clovis NM with vocal backing group The Roses.

Ronnie Smith (c.1938-1962) was a singer and disc jockey in Odessa, Texas where he fronted local band The Poor Boys. In February 1959 he was called in to replace Buddy Holly on the last leg of the fateful Winter Dance Party tour.

Already on the tour when Smith flew in was Carl Bunch, drummer from The Poor Boys and a co-writer of Lookie, Lookie, Lookie. When Buddy Holly’s plane went down en route to Fargo ND, Bunch had been temporarily out of action, hospitalised with frostbite.

The third co-writer of Lookie, Lookie, Lookie is Norman Petty, the legendary producer-songwriter-studio owner who had been a crucial figure in Buddy Holly’s success.

Essential reading: For more context and details about Ronnie Smith and the other members of Winter Dance Party touring band, see Larry Lehmer, The day the music died: the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens (2004) (digitised at Internet Archive; free registration needed).

… Smith was a charismatic presence onstage. “Ronnie Smith and the Poor Boys were bigger than Roy Orbison and the Teen Kings in West Texas,” [Carl] Bunch says. “That’s because of Ronnie.” Smith’s arrival was a shot in the arm for a shattered band.

Dion remembers Smith’s debut performance at the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines. “He did this Presley imitation. He was such a good-looking kid. He was terrific.”

Ronnie Smith joins the Winter Dance Party Tour, The day the music died p. 124

Selected sources, further reading:
1. Philip Norman, Buddy: the biography (1997 edition), pp. 362 and 368. (digitised at Internet Archive; free registration needed).
2. Dave Laing, Buddy Holly (2010), p.75 (Internet Archive, free registration needed).
3. Alan Mann, Ronnie Smith in The A-Z of Buddy Holly (1996), p. 177, (Internet Archive)
4. The Carl Bunch article at Wikipedia is detailed and properly footnoted.
5. Ronnie Smith at Rockin’ Country Style.