The Day the Music Died

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Feb 3, 1959

The Day the Music Died: A small plane carrying The Big Bopper (JP Richardson), Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens crashes near Mason City, Iowa, while en route to a show in Fargo, North Dakota.


50 years ago, the rock world lost three of it's biggest stars. Some, like Ritchie Valens, only just became famous. Their deaths influenced a young man to write, in my opinion, one of the greatest ballads of all time, American Pie. Let's take a moment to reflect on the deaths of these three people and how they changed the music scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRwGxswYcJkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRwGxswYcJk

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

I was 12 and the news was quite a shock. Garrison Kiellor on the Prairie Home Companion radio show did a spectacular Lake Wobegone monologue about visitng the site to commorate the 40th anniversary. I'll look and see if it exists on the web somewhere.

 

[RJDiogenes]

"Bye bye, Miss American Pie."

That's a great song, but I would much prefer if all those on that plane had lived.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Me too. They all would've had great, long careers.

 

[marillion]

I was privledged to work in the radio business in Clovis, NM, where Buddy recorded all his huge hits at the Norman Petty Studios.

Back in the 90's, after Norman passed away, his widow, Vi Petty had the studios restored to the way they had been back in the 50's. From time to time, the studio is opened to special tours and events. The recording equipment and instruments are the same ones used during all of Petty's sessions with many famous acts like The Fireballs (Sugar Shack), Buddy Guy, Roy Orbison and more.

I also taught audio production at Eastern New Mexico University and once a semester, I would take my class to the studios. They would bring out a Holly master tape and put it on for us. Though the headphones, the sound was so rich and alive that you would swear that Buddy was in the room next to you playing..

Truely an amazing experience.

 

[Dick Whitman]

That is a great story marillion!

Buddy died almost 20 years before I was even born. But his music means so much to me. He was a genius.