The Picks is an American vocal trio that backed Buddy Holly and the Crickets' band on nine of the first twelve Crickets releases on Brunswick in 1957, as well as backing Buddy Holly solos for group sounds. The original members were John Pickering (lead), Bill Pickering (tenor) and Bob Lapham (baritone).
In 1940, as young members of the Pickering Family Quartet (Mom, Pop, Billy and Johnny), who were singing daily on KICA, Clovis, New Mexico, the two brothers first met Norman Petty and Violet Ann Brady (later, Vi Petty). At the time, Johnny was seven and Billy and Norman were thirteen. Norman Petty, whose piano show followed their radio show, soon became good friends with Billy and Johnny. The family soon moved back and forth between Clovis (KICA), Lubbock (KFYO and KSEL) and Houston (KTRH and KPRC), performing with and meeting many other professional musicians over the years. "Pop" (John M.) Pickering died suddenly in 1953 and Mom (Beth), John and Bill were then joined by radio celebrity Jerry "Jaybird" Drennan as bass-singer for a short time. Soon after the death of "Pop", "Mom" retired from professional singing and Bill and John moved on to perform on their own. They helped form "The Plainsmen" (radio singers and winners of a Horace Heidt competition at Lubbock) but Bill left the group soon after and John joined a radio and TV gospel quartet called "Happy Rhythm Boys". Bill became a disc jockey for KLLL in Lubbock and was the first DJ to play Buddy Holly’s first Decca solo release, "Blue Days, Black Nights".
Once upon a time in the land of Hushabye
Around about the wondrous days of yore
They came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labeled, "Kindly do not touch, it's war"
Decree was issued round about all with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily colored mascot tripping lightly on the fore
"Don't fiddle with this deadly box
Or break the chains, or pick the locks
And please, don't ever play about with war"
Well, the children understood, children happen to be good
They were just as good around the time of yore
They didn't try to pick the locks
Or break into that deadly box
They never tried to play about with war
Mommies didn't either, sisters, aunts, grannies neither
'Cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty
In those wondrous days of yore
Well, very much the same as now, not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war
But someone did, someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out across the floor
A sort of bouncy bumpy ball made up of guns and flags
And all the tears and horror and the death that goes with war
It bounced right out and went bashing all about
And bumping into everything in store
And what was sad and most unfair
Is that it didn't really seem to care
Much who it bumped, or why, or what, or for
It bumped the children mainly, and I'll tell you this quite plainly
It bumps them everyday and more and more
And leaves them dead and burned and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying
'Cause when it bumps, it's really very sore
Now there's a way to stop the ball, it isn't difficult at all
All it takes is wisdom
I'm absolutely sure that we could get it back into the box
And bind the chains and lock the locks
No one seems to want to save the children anymore
Well, that's the way it all appears
'Cause it's been bouncing 'round for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom whizzed since those wondrous days of yore
And the time they came across the box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks