Rave On: 50 years after plane crash, fans dispute the music ever died

[Omaha Steve]

Alan Freed: "You can stop me, but you're never gonna stop rock & roll!".


http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10552791

Published Sunday February 1, 2009
Rave On: 50 years after plane crash, fans dispute the music ever died
BY ELIZABETH AHLIN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

CLEAR LAKE, Iowa — J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson leaned against the pineapple-print wallpaper in the Surf Ballroom and entertained the eager greeting of one more teenage fan.

It was late, and the 28-year-old singer had just finished playing the 11th concert of a grueling 24-city tour, but he took a minute to ask a local denim-clad 4-H president a couple of questions.


The glasses Buddy Holly was wearing when he was killed in a plane crash Feb. 3, 1959. The glasses were found by a farmer in the field of the plane crash in April of 1959 after the snow had melted.


Where do you go to school? What grade are you in? It was just a few moments, and then Alan Duea, 18, went back to his star-struck friends.

The Big Bopper headed into the cold, blustery night. He was going to the airport where he, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens planned to catch a plane to their next show.

Today, almost 50 years later, everyone knows how this story ends. Before the crowd in Clear Lake could be forgotten by those young rock sensations, their lives were over. Modern music history changed on Feb. 3, 1959, and generations of fans would come to know it as The Day the Music Died.

But that four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza also changed the course of Clear Lake when it went down in a field just north of this little Iowa town.


FULL story at link.

• Photo Showcase: The Day The Music Died

• The Facts: The Day the Music Died
• Animated Map: Detailing the crash

• Audio and Video: Holly & The Crickets' 'Not Fade Away' is an oft-covered song
• Audio and Video: "La Bamba" by Richie Valens • "Chantilly Lace" by the Big Bopper • "Peggy Sue" by Buddy Holly & The Crickets

[man4allcats]

1. Thanks for posting.

It's hard to believe it's been so long. The music is still in my head, but everything else has changed. Sometimes I feel like Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson and Richie Valens were the lucky ones. JFK is reputed to have once remarked that old age is a shipwreck. There might be something to that.

[Qanisqineq]

2. interesting

I wasn't born yet, and wouldn't be for more than a decade, but I have heard my aunt talk about this. She had tickets to the concert in Fargo-Moorhead, where Buddy Holly, et al. were heading. Bobby Vee was discovered that next night in Fargo. He and his band filled in for the crash victims at the concert.

About a month ago I watched the Buddy Holly movie with Gary Busey, very sad.

[murielm99]

3. For many years, there was an urban myth that

there were no pictures of the three from that last concert. Pictures were taken, but none of them turned out.

Pictures do exist. The real story was that a sign was posted saying, "No cameras allowed." Most people complied with it.

One fourteen year old girl who did not see the sign took black and white photos. She still had the negatives after all these years. She found a story offering a reward for pictures, and shared her negatives.

There may be a few other pictures, too, but there are not many.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Kick

[sendero]

5. Not to rain on the memory of Buddy Holly....

... or that catchy little song, I find the idea that "the music died" absurd. Regardless of what Don McLean thinks, Dylan and Jagger are just as much rock and roll as anyone lost in that tragic crash.

[MadHound]

6. While Presely was the more popular of the '50's rock artists,

Buddy Holly is the one who left the most lasting impression on the music itself. He was an innovator and way ahead of his time. One just has to look at the all the artists, major and minor, who list Holly as an inspiration and influence.

[originalpckelly]

8. He was a sick perverted man who couldn't help but play with himself in the studio.

:P

Those glasses look like something you'd see today, very good clean lines in them.

[originalpckelly]

7. On a side note, the music of a guy who's been dead for 50 years...

is still copyrighted, and actively being cleansed from YouTube by Warner Music Group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coy8Hoa1DNw&feature=related

Now I'll have to rummage through all my crap and look to see if I have La Bamba on CD. MOFOs.