The Day The Music Died

Today, 50 years ago, the plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) and Ritchie Valens crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa and all perished. And lest we forget, the 21 year-old pilot, Jim Peterson died as well. For the Class of '59, at least, the sock hops took on a somber tone in their senior year.

I was just this side of seven years old at the time, so all I remember was the shock on my older brother's face when the news hit the airwaves. These guys helped pioneer Rock n' Roll. Don McLean later penned this as "The Day the Music Died" in his famous "American Pie" hit. Waylon Jennings, who with Tommy Allsup formed Buddy's new backup band, gave up his seat to the Big Bopper. Talk about life-altering decisions. For those too young to remember, Buddy had a huge influence on rock music that lasts until this day.

Keith Richards of the Stones attended one of Buddy's concerts and his band later did a cover of Buddy's "Not Fade Away" which was an early hit of theirs. Tony Bramwell, a friend of McCartney and George Harrison, met Buddy and through him, the Fab Four were significantly influenced as well. The Beatles did a cover of "Words of Love" and McCartney owns publishing rights to Holly's song catalog to this day.

A young Bob Dylan also attended a "Dion & the Belmonts" & "Buddy Holly & The Crickets" concert two nights before the plane crash and referred to this during his Grammy acceptance speech in 1998 for his album, "Time Out Of Mind".

Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936 in Lubbock, Texas. Buddy grew up in a musical family and learned to play the piano, guitar and violin. His first music was all Bluegrass, following the family lead. This all changed when he saw Elvis perform in 1955. A few months later, he appeared on the same bill with Mr. Presley and the rest, as they say, is history.

The list of those influenced by Buddy Holly and the covers of his songs is way too lengthy to list here. Suffice it to say that there were only a handful of pioneers that profoundly changed the music that we listened to and Buddy was one of them.

We'll adjourn with lyrics from a song of another Buddy Holly admirer, Mac Davis. In his song "Happiness is Lubbock Texas", he wrote the following words:

I set out one night in June
Stoned by the glow of the Texas moon
Humming an old Buddy Holly song called "Peggy Sue"
With my favorite jeans
And a cheap guitar
I ran off chasing a distant star
If Buddy Holly could make it that far
I figured I could too.