The Day the Music Died: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper
OT: February 3rd, 1959, The Day The Music Died...
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
I was in a candy store after school that day,playing the iconic pinball machine,Southern Belle,when one of the older kids,a Fonzie type,came into the store with the news.Had I had gone straight home,I would have seen it in The Newark Evening News.
American pie by Don McClean pays tribute to this day despite him never disclosing the meaning of the song
Watched the new documentary on the writing of American Pie last night on Paramount+.
Nelson Crabb, the mayor of the town of Clear Lake, Iowa where the last show was played and the plane went down started his recollection of hearing the news of the tragedy by saying something along the lines of, "I was on my way back to Rutgers University where I was a freshman when the man came on the radio..."
Was a neat, unexpected mention.
Nelson Crabb, the mayor of the town of Clear Lake, Iowa where the last show was played and the plane went down started his recollection of hearing the news of the tragedy by saying something along the lines of, "I was on my way back to Rutgers University where I was a freshman when the man came on the radio..."
Was a neat, unexpected mention.
About 2 weeks before my first birthday. Amazing how many musicians have died in accidents. Cars, planes, motorcycles,helicopters, etc.
John Denver, Eddie Cochran, Bessie Smith, Duane Allman, Randy Rhodes, AalIyah, Members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ricky Nelson….could do a whole discussion on it.
I was -3, lol. Eventually became a huge Buddy Holly fan after realizing how many hit songs by others were actually his and learning about how influential he was. He's on the short list to be on the R&R Mt. Rushmore - might be worth a thread on that, lol. I was recently reading one critic who had Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Cash on his "most iconic and influential" Mt. Rushmore. I think he was focused on just the early days of R&R, but hard to argue with that list. Of course, later came artists like the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, Zep, the Supremes (and many more from Motown),Aretha, Neil, Bruce, Bowie, and then the Clash, Talking Heads, Public Enemy, U2, Prince, Nirvana, Metallica, and Menudo (just checking to see who's reading, lol).
I liked Valens ok (and he was only 17)
The others I wouldn't even know about without the American Pie song
I've never been a fan of music from that era
The traveling was a mess back then
They has 24 gigs in a row and no plan for strategizing of distance and time
They were zigging back and forth chaotically by bus at first
There were no interstates yet and road travel was hard
The pilot was 21 and despite having some hours accumulated he had failed a instrumentation test a few months earlier, and could only fly under visible flight rules.
There was no thorough weather info available.
"The CAB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was "the pilot's unwise decision" to attempt a flight that required skills he did not have."
The others I wouldn't even know about without the American Pie song
I've never been a fan of music from that era
The traveling was a mess back then
They has 24 gigs in a row and no plan for strategizing of distance and time
They were zigging back and forth chaotically by bus at first
There were no interstates yet and road travel was hard
The pilot was 21 and despite having some hours accumulated he had failed a instrumentation test a few months earlier, and could only fly under visible flight rules.
There was no thorough weather info available.
"The CAB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was "the pilot's unwise decision" to attempt a flight that required skills he did not have."
A radio talk show was discussing this the other day. It was a small plane and there wasn't enough room for all 4 of them so they flipped coins to see who had to drive. Waylon Jennings lost the coin flips but won and had to drive.
The best doc I saw on the event has recollections from Jennings and other people involved.
Jennings said Holly was teasing him about being stuck on the buss and hoping the bus froze-up in -40 weather.
Jennings said he told Holly "Well I hope your plane crashes."
He said he was afraid for years that people would find out he said that
8:20 in
Everyone actually survived that crash. There was a fire in the cabin. The pilots kicked out the cockpit window and escaped. Later after first responders put the fire out they found Ricky and his girlfriend and bandmates' bodies all huddled together against the cockpit door. They ran up to escape. They died of burns and smoke inhalation. If the pilots had just opened the door for them before they saved themselves everyone could have made it out.