Jon Holly loves that old-time rock ‘n’ roll — and the new stuff and everything in between.
The Frankfort 18-year-old has turned his CD collection into a part-time profession, the Wave Machine Mobile Disc Jockey service that plays “40 years of sound waves,” from the ’50s through the ’90s.
And he came up with a stage name that pays tribute to rock’s roots by dropping the “e” from his family’s surname, just as the late Buddy Holly did in the 1950s.
As a deejay, Jon Holly can create a whole atmosphere, “the light shows, everyone enjoying themselves,” he said.
“(Music) has been his interest ever since I can remember,” said Holly’s dad, Bill Holley.
And music has sustained the Lincoln-Way High School senior through some difficult times. When he was only 6 months old, Jon suffered a brain injury in a car crash that killed his mother, Kathy LeVeque. He was hospitalized for seven weeks at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he underwent brain surgery.
The accident changed Bill Holley’s life too. A hospital social worker studying for his master’s degree at the time of the accident, he decided to switch to education and is now a social worker at Century School in Orland Park.
“My view of special education changed so much throughout the years,” he said.
The former Kankakee resident moved to the Frankfort area about 13 years ago, after remarrying.
“We kind of happened on the area. . . . We had heard a lot about the Lincoln-Way schools,” he said.
Bill Holley and his wife, Linda, a nurse at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, have two other sons with musical talent: Ryan, 11, who plays the trombone; and Christopher, 7, who is taking piano lessons.
Bill Holley thinks vision problems caused by the injury likely intensified Jon’s love of music.
“When you have low vision,” Holley said, “the sense that means the most is hearing. And he has a natural musical talent. He can sing on key.
“He’ll play the harmonica. It’s kind of fun to hear what he can do,” he said.
As a child, Bill Holley recalled, Jon’s favorite plaything was a battery-operated gizmo that featured a microphone, sound effects and a tape player. He used it to play disc jockey, even inventing his own radio station, WJNK (for junk radio).
But coincidence turned the childhood game into a major endeavor.
“What we fell into was really lucky,” said Bill Holley, who, while coaching Ryan’s baseball team, met Randy Ridderhoff, the father of a teammate. Ridderhoff was running a deejay business of his own.
“He took an immediate liking to Jon,” Holley said.
And Jon got his first deejay job when Ridderhoff was hired to play at a dance for special education students in New Lenox.
“I thought, what a great opportunity for Jon,” Ridderhoff said. “He came out (to assist), and we had a blast.”
Other jobs followed. “The more he came out with me, the more he loved it,” Ridderhoff said. “If you’ve seen him work, you can tell he really loves music.”
“It was kind of like a dream-type thing,” said Holly, who knows his way around the equipment as well as the music. “I like electronic stuff.”
Being a deejay isn’t really an easy job, Ridderhoff noted. “There’s pressure (to keep things going at the right pace),” he said.
Holly’s confidence grew along with his collection of CDs and equipment, and now he’s working smaller parties and local events on his own.
“Jon’s just starting (as a solo). This is the first year that Jon’s been able to do something bigger,” Bill Holley said.
The money he earns goes back into the business. “It’s a way for him to support his own hobby,” Holley said.
“Every time (Jon and his father) do parties, they can buy more equipment and get more tunes,” Ridderhoff said.
And the fact that Jon charges only a moderate fee is a plus for his customers, Ridderhoff said. “It’s nice to know that Jon’s out there. People can hire him without paying big bucks.”
Holly has played for a neighborhood block party, a cousin’s graduation party and the Project B.E.G.I.N. Family Faire, and he provided sound effects for the Frankfort Park District’s Haunted Trails.
“He was a natural for that,” Holley said. “We’ve always set up a haunted house (for Halloween).” It started when “Jon came home one day with two spooky spiders (for decorations), and it just grew and grew,” Holley said, eventually taking over the family garage, where assorted ghosts and ghouls hold court every Oct. 31.
Holly’s biggest job was providing the music for the recent wedding of family friend Ty Westerhoff in Kankakee.
“(Westerhoff) would only have Jon do it,” Holley said. “Jon did a wonderful job. It’s what Jon does.”
And a recent gig found him playing for classmates at the Lincoln-Way Special Recreation Association’s annual sports banquet.
“It was neat for the other participants to see,” said Jay Johnson, former director of the association, a cooperative that plans recreational activities for special education students in Frankfort, Mokena, Frankfort Square, New Lenox and Manhattan.
“He did an excellent job. It was a 2 1/2-hour event,” said Johnson, who is now a student activities coordinator at Lincoln-Way High School.
“A hobby that he enjoys so much, it’s got to empower him,” he said. “And it was great for us to pay him the money we would have given someone else.”
But music isn’t Holly’s only interest. He’s a member of the special recreation association’s social club.
Holly loves sports too, especially basketball, in which he has played on a Special Olympics team, and track.
“I used to be in chorus, and I like (a horticulture class). . . . A lot of classes are about getting a job . . . learning how to support yourself with a checkbook and everything,” he said.
Bill Holley, who helps Jon with his business, is building a recording studio in the basement of the family home. His son’s love of music is “an interest that can be enhanced. It’s a self-esteem builder. It gives him a sense of identity.”
Holly’s talent, he said, “gives him a purpose and puts him in a nice situation with others socially.”
