The Day the Music Died - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

The Day the Music Died

This coming Saturday, February 3rd will be the 59th anniversary of rock and roll musician Buddy Holly’s death in an airplane crash.

The crashed plane pictured above was named American Pie, which was the title of the 1971 song The Day The Music Died, an 8 minute ballad by Don McLean about Buddy Holly. There are many references to historical events that occurred after the crash and are referenced in the epic saga. Here’s an interesting video that shows scenes associated with those consequential events between 1959 and 1971 when the song was written. Including the song’s words (hit cc to show the lyrics) with photos and film clips, the ballad takes on even more meaning. There is also a current Broadway play about Buddy Holly I really enjoyed during a recent trip to NYC.

Buddy went down in the plane with fellow musicians, Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson, aka the Big Bopper, while on a winter tour of the midwest as indicated in the flyer above. All were very young and only had a handful of hit songs. Buddy Holly’s best known for "That’ll be the Day", Ritchie Valens for “La Bamba” the Big Bopper for “Chantilly Lace”.

My favorite line in the song near the end references the three people he admires most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost symbolized in the photos below.

Here’s an informative article from Time magazine about the Day the Music Died.

Enjoy! Glad the music really didn’t literally die, but no doubt the death of Buddy Holly and his cohorts irreparably changed the course of music.