February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died

[Paladin1950]

The concert was the evening of February 2nd, but the crash occurred little after 1am, on February 3rd.

Buddy Holly was 22, Ritchie Valens 17, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) 28, and even their pilot Roger Peterson was young. He was 21.
One of my favorite 2 sided hits was by Ritchie, The A side was in Spanish, La Bamba. The B side was in English, Donna. Had he lived, he could have had hit songs in 2 different languages. J.P's music career probably wouldn't have lasted long, but he could have done other things in music. For instance, he wrote the Johnny Preston song Running Bear.

But when Buddy died, how many ideas for songs died with him? How many other great songs would he have recorded? In the 1970's and 1980's, when I went to all of those oldies and doo wop concerts, and saw people like Chuck Berry, Ricky Nelson, The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and others, I often would think of how great it would have been to see an older Buddy Holly come back and sing his hit songs from his younger days.

February 3rd and December 8th (the day John Lennon was murdered) are two days of the year that I often think about when I listen to music in my collection. I miss John and Elvis, but they lived to be about twice as old as Buddy. Buddy Holly is the one person in music history that I have always missed the most.

 

[IrishEyes]

Buddy Holly impressed my sons even. I would hear them playing their cassette of his and singing their hearts out
beginning at age 9 & 11. When we had Fireplace Karaoke Night in the winters they always did one of his songs
over the current hits out at the time. He was just loved way beyond death.