The Day the Music Died

Today is the day the music died and nearly everyone my age knows the Don Mclean song American Pie which I'm referencing. We generally know this song from our high school dances or weddings receptions even though we weren't born when it was released. I'd even venture to say not everyone knows what the beginning lyrics are referencing. Buddy Holly died February 3, 1959 along with Ritchie Valens, "The Big Bopper" JP Richardson and the pilot when their plane crashed shortly after take off after finishing their concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Iowa and Don Mclean learned of the crash while folding the newspapers for his paper route. The events leading up to the plane leaving changed music history as we know it today.

You're probably thinking why a 30 something from Iowa cares about Buddy Holly's music. Well here's the story behind that. Growing up I used to listen to my dad's old records and 8 tracks; so my musical influence was formed listening to Buddy Holly and The Beach Boys on vinyl and Cheech & Chong on 8 track. OK I know they weren't exactly music but my dad used to have this CB and an 8 track player hooked up to a car battery down in our basement so my friend Mike & I used to spend some time down their after school working on our 10-4 good buddies and cracking up over "Ralph". OK back to task now.

Holly helped from a lot of rock & roll as we know it today. Makes me wonder what he could have been considering he was only 22 when he died but he was the 1st rocker to write, produce & perform his own music and the band set up of a drum, a bass guitar and 2 guitars (lead & rhythm) was his doing too. He influenced some of the greatest of any generation from Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles (homage to Buddy Holly and The Crickets), Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones to Elton John (who didn't need glasses but did to imitate Buddy). He also crossed the color barrier playing with Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

But you could probably say Waylon Jennings was influenced the most since he gave up his seat on that plane to Buddy and ended up having an exchange of words that haunted him for a long time. You have to rememer it is usually extremely cold here in the Midwest; especially in February and when you couple that with a bus that the heater was broken and you have a drummer with frostbitten feet and no one wanted to be on that bus heading up to Minnesota for the next stop. Holly was quoted to have said "I hope your bus freezes up!" Jennings quipped back, "Well, I hope your plane crashes!" Had that exchange of seats not happened we wouldn't of had the Dukes of Hazzard theme song. Here's a little bit of the Buddy Holly story.





His music continues to live on and much to the chagrin of my family I will continue to play his music.....now if I could just get that glottal stop down I'd be set. FYI that's the vocal style he so uniquely used.