“I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed
bride
But something touched me deep
inside
The day the music died”
(Excerpt
from the song “American Pie” by Don McLean)
“The day the music died”. Thus
it’s known, for all who love Rock ‘n’ Roll, the date February 3, 1959. On that day, a tragic air crash took three rising
stars of the musical scene: Buddy Holly,
JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens.
The musicians were taking part, alongside the band Dion and the Belmonts, of the tour "The Winter Dance Party" that would visit 23 cities
between the January, 23 and February, 15. This tour did not have a well-planned
logistics and one of the problems was the time it took to go from one city to
another, resulting in a physical exhaustion in the artists. In addition, the
bus used on the tour was not prepared to endure the American winter and since
the beginning of the tour their heating system was broken.
On February 2, after the show at “The
Surf Ballroom” in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy
Holly - for all of the reasons cited above - decided to charter a plane to
go on the next city that would be Moorhead, Minnesota. The Beechcraft Bonanza model B35 hired could only carry three
passengers, so the seats were occupied by Buddy
Holly and two of their musicians, Waylon
Jennings and Tommy Allsup, after
the vocalist Dion DiMucci of Dion and The Belmonts to cede its seat
because it considered that the value to be paid, $ 36, was an extravagant
expense.
However, Jennings ceded his
place to "The Big Bopper"
because he had developed a flu, and Allsup
- after losing in the "heads or tails" - to Ritchie Valens, who until then had never been flown, because he had
fear of fly.
In an interview with the program "Behind
The Music" on the musical channel VH1,
Jennings narrated one of the last
dialogues he had with Holly. After Buddy understood that Jennings had
given his seat, he joked that he hoped the old bus would freeze. Jennings in the same funny tone
replied, "And I hope your old plane
crashes." These words branded Jennings
for the rest of his life.
It’s important to emphasize that this gig in Iowa wasn't included in
the master schedule, but the schedulers wanted to increase the number of
concerts and they got in touch with the manager of the local that accepted the
proposal.
The wreckage of the plane was found on a cornfield eight miles from
Mason City, Iowa, at about 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 3 by Hubert Dwyer, the owner of the plane, who had gone looking for the
plane after understood that the the Bonanza’s
pilot, Roger Peterson, didn't get in
touch after takeoff.
 |
| The memorial marking the crash site |
THE ARTISTS
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly, whose real name was Charles Hardin Holley, is considered to be one of the founders of
Rock 'n' Roll and, even with a short career, he would influence not only famous
musicians such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan,
among others, but would also make a significant contribution in the direction
that music would take. Not to mention that Buddy
Holly invented the visual geek that is copied as yet.
With his band
Crickets, he had been breaking
racial barriers and much of his public was black people.
Holly,
described by critics as "the most
influential creative force in the early days of rock," was one of the
first to be included into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and in 2011 finally won her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He was only
22 when the accident happened.
Ritchie Valens
Ritchie Valens (real name Ricardo
Esteban Valenzuela Reyes) was a descendant of Mexicans, but he didn't speak
a word in Spanish. For sing "La
Bamba", his best known song, he had to memorize the lyrics and many
people say that he didn't know he was singing.
At the time
of her death, she was only 17 years old and her career was in full ascension
because two of her songs were constantly playing on the radio: the
aforementioned "La Bamba",
title of a film about her life, too, and "Donna",
a song written to his girlfriend.
JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson
The Big Bopper was the stage name of Jiles
Perry Richardson (JP Richardson). In the United States he is considered one
of the pioneers of Rock and Roll. Before starting to sing, he was a DJ on radio
station KTRM (now KZZB) from Texas and in May 1957 he did a five-day, two-hour,
eight-minute marathon, playing 1821 records.
His best known song is "Chantilly Lace" which soon became a national sensation
reaching sixth place in the charts.
He was 28 years old.
THE SONG “AMERICAN
PIE”
Don McLean was just a 12-year-old kid who delivered newspapers and dreamed
of becoming a singer when the crash that killed the three prominent musicians
occurred. Twelve years later, in 1971, he would write and release folk-rock
song "American Pie" that
helped popularize the expression "the
day the music died". With more than eight minutes, the song was an
instant success.
[Note:
We know that there is more in history of each musician, but we didn't want to
extend much because, soon, we will write special articles about them]
Source:
Universo
Retro
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