50 Years Ago Today - Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper

50 Years Ago Today, February, 3, 1959, Buddy Holly (age 22), Ritchie Valens (age 17), and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson, Jr., age 28) died in a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. In Don McLean's 1971 song "American Pie", he would call this 'The Day the Music Died'.

The three young rock and roll musicians were leaving their gig at The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa (see photo of the ballroom below), which was part of "The Winter Dance Party." They were heading to the next stop in the tour, Moorhead, Minnesota. The plane crashed soon after take off due to a combination of poor weather conditions and pilot error. The pilot, Roger Peterson, also died in the crash. He was only 21 years old and was not rated for night-time flight.

The small plane would only hold three passengers, in addition to the pilot. Waylon Jennings had originally planned to fly, but gave up his seat on the plane to Richardson, who had the flu. Guitarist Tommy Allsup had also planned to fly, but lost his seat in a coin toss to Valens who had never flown in a small plane before and wanted to experience it.

We can only wonder what music the three artists would have written and recorded had they lived to be a more reasonable age.

The Day the Music Died on Wikipedia

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - It was 40 years ago today

"It was 40 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play...". The Beatles' masterpiece album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was released in the USA on June 2, 1967 (June 1 in the UK). The CD version of the album was released on the 20th anniversary back in 1987. I remember being in Houston, TX on June 2, 1987 (or maybe it was June 1, the UK date) and a radio station there was doing a broadcast where they were pretending it was that June day in 1967 and they had just heard the "newly released album". It's hard to believe another 20 years have passed since that landmark!

Here's an article about Lucy O’Donnell, the inspiration for the Julian Lennon drawing that inspired John's "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". The article also mentions the lovestruck teenage runaway, Melanie Coe who inspired Paul's "She Leaving Home".

Sgt. Pepper presentation at the official Beatles site.

BeatlesLane.com Beatles fan site