The day the music died...60 year remembrance thread....

[Heartstrings]

Ritchie Valens (born 5-13-1941, died 2-3-1959)

Buddy Holly (born 9-7-1936, died 2-3-1959)

The Big Bopper (born 10-24-30, died 2-3-1959)

Thank you Don McLean for this tribute to these fine, gone too soon artists....

[Glamrock]

1. Thanks for the great thread!

You be careful on your travels mama.

[Heartstrings]

3. I will be thinking of you, Glam....

Especially on those 22 hour flights, earbuds in jamming out bigly!

🎶 🎤🎧🎸🎷🥁🎹🎼

[Glamrock]

15. Awww. You're the sweetest.

Bummer your leaving. Gonna be outside Milwaukee next week.

[UniteFightBack]

32. Yes it's a great thread...

until you see some replies knocking this one or that one's talent or lack there of it. Unbelievable.

[Quemado]

2. Don McLean - American Pie

[struggle4progress]

10. I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news

but she just smiled and turned away

I went down to the sacred store where I’d heard the music years before
but the man there said the music wouldn’t play

And in the streets, the children screamed, the lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
but not a word was spoken: the church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most --- the father, son, and the holy ghost ---
they caught the last train for the coast

[spanone]

4. K&R...👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[Croney]

5. Don McLean was 13 and I was 14 that day.

He was recently here in Boston in a small venue. Singing American Pie with him was the most moving time of my musical life.

[whistler162]

6. and I was -9 months and 1 day

Still have a 45 of American Pie

[kentuck]

7. White Lightning

[brooklynite]

8. AMERICAN PIE is a nice song, but music definitely disn't "die"

[treestar]

23. A metaphor for those 3 guys

[Aristus]

24. I think Mclean may have been referring to the period after the crash

when stimulating, innovative rock and roll went away for a while, and the airwaves were flooded with sappy, romantic ballads by Frankie Avalon, Fabian Forte, Pat Boone, etc instead.

Rock and roll didn't really come back until The Beatles got big in 1964.

[Roadside Attraction]

9. Waylon Jennings . . .

Waylon Jennings was Buddy Holly's bass guitarist. He gave up his seat to J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who had the flu.

I was 14, am now 74. Have marked the day for 50 years.

[TexasBushwhacker]

20. Yup. Waylon suffered from survivor's guilt

for the rest of his life.

[Docreed2003]

27. Buddy told him he hoped that he froze on the bus

And Waylon told Buddy "Yeah, well I hope your plane crashes"

They were just busting each other's chops but those were the last words he told Holly. Can't imagine the survivors guilt from that

[TNNurse]

11. I was 9, had older siblings

and knew some of the music. Thanks for posting this. We should always remember and enjoy their music.

[Stinky The Clown]

28. And isn't that the greatest tribute that can be paid?

[pangaia]

12. Thanks. I grew up in the 50's 60's...

played mostly jazz, but a lot of rock 'n roll as well..

I was 15 then....

[Mr. Ected]

13. My father grew up in Nora Springs, near Clear Lake

He took my mother dancing and dining at the Surf Club. If I recall correctly, the ceiling was glass and looked out to the stars. He wasn't there on that fateful night, to his regret, only because he was a big fan of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. Many years later my dad and I took a trip to the area, and almost visited the crash site. It was way out in the cornfields and he wasn't up to the walk.

[Horse with no Name]

26. I walked out through that cornfield

It was a cool crisp day and forever etched in my memory.
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[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. What's shocking (at least to me) is how very young they all were.

The Big Bopper was the old man at 28.

Ritchie Valens was only 17. Buddy Holly, 22.

With all due respect the first two probably wouldn't have had very long careers. But Buddy Holly. OMG. His influence, as brief as his time was, is incalculable. The Beatles, the most influential musicians of the 20th century pay tribute to him. Had he lived. Oh, if only he had lived. He'd have been the giant astride rock music and the entire rest of the 20th century.

As it is, what he left behind is simply amazing.

I was 10 years old and well remember the news that morning, even though I didn't follow music and while I'd heard their songs, their deaths didn't really register. As an adult, I take it very differently.

[Persondem]

16. ... and the three men I admire most. The Father, Son and .. the Holy Ghost ...

... They caught the last train for the coast ...

The day, the muusic ..... died.

[czarjak]

17. In Lubbock, Texas 1959...

I was five years old, still remember my sister coming home from school and saying, "Buddy Holly died". Still know his cousin to this day. Rave On!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bmbmd]

29. I grew up in Levelland

and remember driving past the old Carlisle Skate Rink with my mom and dad, ca 1957 or '58. The KDAV truck was there, and throngs of automobiles. Dad asked Mom what could be going on, and she replied "Buddy Holly".

[JGug1]

18. Responding To The Day The Music Died

I am a private pilot. On July 31, 2017, two of my three best friends died flying my Twin Comanche. Subsequently, the wife of one of them sued me. Insurance is declining to cover. I think of them often. I died a little when they died. The wife is a beautiful and bright woman, an immigration attorney, one of "the good ones." She came to me at his funeral and said she was sorry I lost my airplane. I said "fuck my airplane." I meant it and I have lived it because it wasn't paid for so I still have the monthly payments. I'd double the payments if I could have my two friends back.
I don't know what I'd say to her if I could. Could I say that I somehow hope that suing me is making her grief less? I shrug my shoulders. Neither I, nor the other pilot, an instructor pilot, whose estate is being sued also, have deep pockets. I don't know what the attorney, also a pilot, hopes to gain. He has the suit on contingency. I know exactly what happened. Every pilot, and particularly pilots of twin engine airplanes, knows what happened. The instructor was in the right seat. The man flying was in the left. He had something like 50 hours in the airplane, more than enough to sit for his rating and he planned to do just that the next day. He got too slow in a turn. The airplane stalled and spun in. The instructor couldn't stop it. End of story.
These three were of my teen age years. They were in a single engine Bonanza. The pilot flew into bad weather. What a HUGE lose to all of the world. One can only wonder what they would have accomplished.

[Dennis Donovan]

22. The pilot, Roger Peterson, wasn't instrument-rated and was unfamiliar with the Attitude indicator

...in that particular model Bonanza.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died#Official_investigation

The official investigation was carried out by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB, precursor to the NTSB). It emerged that Peterson had over four years of flying experience, of which one was with Dwyer Flying Service, and had accumulated 711 flying hours, of which 128 were on Bonanzas. He had also logged 52 hours of instrument flight training, although he had passed only his written examination, and was not yet qualified to operate in weather that required flying solely by reference to instruments. He and Dwyer Flying Service itself were certified to operate only under visual flight rules, which essentially require that the pilot must be able to see where he is going. However, on the night of the accident, visual flight would have been virtually impossible due to the low clouds, the lack of a visible horizon, and the absence of ground lights over the sparsely populated area. Furthermore, Peterson, who had failed an instrument checkride nine months before the accident, had received his instrument training on airplanes equipped with a conventional artificial horizon as a source of aircraft attitude information, while N3794N was equipped with an older-type Sperry F3 attitude gyroscope. Crucially, the two types of instruments display the same aircraft pitch attitude information in graphically opposite ways.

The CAB concluded that the accident was due to "the pilot's unwise decision" to embark on a flight that required instrument flying skills he had not proved to have. A contributing factor was Peterson's unfamiliarity with the old-style attitude gyroscope fitted on board the aircraft, which may have caused him to believe that he was climbing when he was in fact descending (an example of spatial disorientation). Another contributing factor was the "seriously inadequate" weather briefing provided to Peterson, which "failed to even mention adverse flying condition which should have been highlighted".

Welcome to DU. I'm very sorry to learn of the accident involving your friends and aircraft.

[Elwood P Dowd]

19. I still have that old 7 inch 45rpm record

of Ritchie Valens purchased 60 years ago. It is Del Fi 4110 with Donna on one side and La Bamba on the other. It was even stereo - it was called Delphonic Fidelity, and most records were still in mono then.

As a kid, I would sometimes spend part of my $1.00 a week allowance for doing farm chores on a 45rpm record to play our little suitcase style record player. Both Donna and La Bamba were getting lots of radio air time back then.

[raccoon]

21. Buddy Holly was very talented. Ritchie Valens not as much but still talented.

I’m sorry the Big Bopper died in the crash. But if he hadn’t died in that accident, Only the most diehard rock fans would remember him today.

[Stinky The Clown]

25. You beat me to it. I post a similar thread on a variety of venues where I post

and where such a thread is welcome.

But thanks for posting! K&R!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. Me too. I posted last year in the DU Lounge. I was about to post this year in

the Music Appreciation forum. I was searching for my thread from last year, when I found this thread.

Here's one from last year:

59 years ago today; The Day the Music Died

Here's what I said last year:

On this day in 1959, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts

put on a show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Hat tip, (and I really should have remembered this one), This Day in Rock:

http://www.thisdayinrock.com/index.php/general/1959-appearing-at-surf-ballroom-clear-lake-iowa-buddy-holly/

1959 Winter Dance Party Tour





Schedule

January 23: George Divine’s Million Dollar Ballroom, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
January 24: Eagles Ballroom, Kenosha, Wisconsin (Debbie Stevens also performed)
January 25: Kato Ballroom, Mankato, Minnesota
January 26: Fournier’s Ballroom, Eau Claire, Wisconsin
January 27: Fiesta Ballroom, Montevideo, Minnesota
January 28: Prom Ballroom, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 29: Capitol Theater, Davenport, Iowa
January 30: Laramar Ballroom, Fort Dodge, Iowa
January31: National Guard Armory, Duluth, Minnesota
February 1: Riverside Ballroom, Green Bay, Wisconsin
February 2: Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa

About

In January, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. “The Big Bopper”, Dion and the Belmonts, Frankie Sardo, Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch set out on a 24 day tour barnstorming the Midwest. It became the most infamous tour in rock ‘n roll history.

Organizationally speaking, the tour was a complete catastrophe. The shows were often scheduled hundreds of miles apart from one another as they zigzagged through one of the deadliest winters the Midwest had seen in decades, in the worst possible transportation available. The musicians crammed into a drafty bus to perform in small ballrooms and theatres and by February 1st, Carl Bunch (Holly’s drummer) had left with frostbitten feet. ... By the time the tour limped into Clear Lake, Iowa on the evening of Monday, February 2nd, Holly had decided to charter a small plane for himself, Allsup and Jennings to fly to the next venue in Fargo, North Dakota following the show at the Surf Ballroom. At the last minute, Jennings gave up his seat to The Big Bopper (who had the flu) and Tommy Allsup lost his seat to Ritchie Valens with a flip of a coin.

The performance in Clear Lake was electric and the music brought a joy that would remain forever in the hearts and minds of all who attended. It was a night that burned bright with some of rock and roll’s greatest songs and its brightest stars…and ended with the unthinkable. After their performance here at the Surf Ballroom, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, were killed when their plane crashed shortly after taking off from the nearby Mason City Municipal Airport.

The rest is rock ‘n’ roll history. Bobby Vee & The Shadows performed in Fargo, ND on Feb. 3rd, and Jimmy Clanton, Fabian & Frankie Avalon were substituted as the tour’s headliners. Frankie Sardo, Dion & The Belmonts and The Crickets continued until the end of the tour. ... That day was forever immortalized as ‘The Day The Music Died’ by Don McLean in his 1972 anthem American Pie. For many people, that tour and subsequent crash symbolized the end of a period in both rock and roll and American history. The innocence, it seems, was forever lost.

I know some people have heard this song more times than they feel is necessary, but here it is. I've posted the album version before, so let's go with a live version:

Edited: I just spoke to a coworker years (decades) younger than I am and pointed out that tomorrow was the anniversary of "the day the music died."

"What music?" she said.

Oh, boy.

When I drove across Iowa many years ago on a trip across the United States, I made sure to stop in Clear Lake to see what was left. (Yes, I went to Spirit Lake first. I quickly learned that those are two different cities.) It's a pretty little town.

The Surf Ballroom is still there:



From back then, Dick Clark Show 1958 (September 20 or November 22):

[UniteFightBack]

31. Oh baby this is what I like !!! nt

[MoonRiver]

33. Fantastic post! Thank you!

[akraven]

34. Forever favorites. Thank you for good memories, Heartstrings. nt