Day the music died

[Chris Grieb]

On this date in 1959 the Big Popper, Richie Valens and the great Buddy Holly. Feb 3rd is the day the music died. It may not have been the end of innocence but their deaths were a blow.

[Kat]

Yes, today was indeed a sad day for rock-n-roll. Buddy Holly was only 22 and Richie Valens was still a teenager and just 8 months into his professional musical career. Although this happened before I was even born, I discovered Buddy Holly via the Beatles later as a teenager. The Beatles covered a beautiful Buddy Holly song, "Words of Love", and Paul McCartney bought the publishing rights to Buddy Holly's music.

I also remember loving the song, American Pie from the radio as a little kid in the early 70s and later discovered that it was about this event. See the wikipedia article, The Day the Music Died.

Buddy Holly

Performing Oh Boy on the Ed Sullivan Show

Peggy Sue on Ed Sullivan

That'll Be the Day

The Big Bopper

Chantilly Lace on American Bandstand

Richie Valens

Oooh My Head

Musical and movie tributes:

The Buddy Holly Story and LaBamba on DVD at Amazon

Scenes from the movie La Bamba (starring Lou Diamond Philips as Richie Valens)

Oh Boy - Buddy Holly cover from the movie

Come on Lets Go

La Bamba

Eddie Cochran - Three Stars

Don McLean's American Pie. Its a nice journey through the history of rock and roll.

Rock and Roll Heaven - The Righteous Brothers

Here are some Buddy Holly covers

Paul McCartney - Peggy Sue

Paul McCartney - Words of Love

... and I can't resist putting up Weezer's appearance on Happy Days performing Buddy Holly

Here are some Richie Valens covers

The Ramones also did a cover of Come on Lets Go, but I can't seem to find a video. (Sorry Inky)

Kat

[Chris Grieb]

Kat; I called it the end of innocence and it was a shock. Buddy Holly's wife was with child and she lost the baby. American Pie talks about other events. I would now say the greater shock was the assassination of John F Kennedy.