February 3, 1959 – I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.
I was a freshman at Rincon High School in Tucson, AZ getting ready for PE class. Standing in front of my gym locker and hearing that three of my favorite musical performers, J.P. Richardson (AKA “The Big Bopper”), Richie Valens and Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash earlier that morning in Clear Lake, IA following a concert. Just a few evenings before on KAIR the DJ had repeatedly played Valens’ “La Bamba” intro as a joke and now he was gone. Buddy Holly, who had a knack for singing about things all teens of that era understood, was gone. And J.P. Richardson, a former radio DJ who had only one big national hit (“Chantilly Lace”) was gone. The lucky one that night was future Country star Waylon Jennings who had given his seat on the plane to Holly who wasn’t feeling well. But we didn’t know that at the time. All we knew was that three icons of popular music had died and, along with them, a piece of our childhood.
The mood in my PE class that morning was quiet and somber. Most of us had not known a tragedy like that before and couldn’t quite wrap our heads around it. The opening RIF from “La Bamba” kept going through my head that day to the exclusion of most everything else. That evening after dinner I just sat in front of my little AM radio listening to the DJ’s talk about the accident and the wonderful careers cut short.
The three musicians are frozen in time and who then would have thought their music was still being played all these years later. Buddy Holly was a genuine star then and left a catalog of songs that influenced many other musicians. Richie Valens was just getting started but his one hit was a giant and undoubtedly influenced other Latinos they could make it in pop music too. J.P. Richardson was a man of several talents, singer, songwriter, DJ and stage performer and was probably the least known of the trio but his contribution to early Rock n Roll is evident.
Thankfully, “The Day The Music Died” has not reoccurred and we have not lost multiple artists at once as we did that cold, January night. Sadly though, much of what they started, the happy be-bop music and danceable rockabilly hits died with them.
I was a freshman at Rincon High School in Tucson, AZ getting ready for PE class. Standing in front of my gym locker and hearing that three of my favorite musical performers, J.P. Richardson (AKA “The Big Bopper”), Richie Valens and Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash earlier that morning in Clear Lake, IA following a concert. Just a few evenings before on KAIR the DJ had repeatedly played Valens’ “La Bamba” intro as a joke and now he was gone. Buddy Holly, who had a knack for singing about things all teens of that era understood, was gone. And J.P. Richardson, a former radio DJ who had only one big national hit (“Chantilly Lace”) was gone. The lucky one that night was future Country star Waylon Jennings who had given his seat on the plane to Holly who wasn’t feeling well. But we didn’t know that at the time. All we knew was that three icons of popular music had died and, along with them, a piece of our childhood.
The mood in my PE class that morning was quiet and somber. Most of us had not known a tragedy like that before and couldn’t quite wrap our heads around it. The opening RIF from “La Bamba” kept going through my head that day to the exclusion of most everything else. That evening after dinner I just sat in front of my little AM radio listening to the DJ’s talk about the accident and the wonderful careers cut short.
The three musicians are frozen in time and who then would have thought their music was still being played all these years later. Buddy Holly was a genuine star then and left a catalog of songs that influenced many other musicians. Richie Valens was just getting started but his one hit was a giant and undoubtedly influenced other Latinos they could make it in pop music too. J.P. Richardson was a man of several talents, singer, songwriter, DJ and stage performer and was probably the least known of the trio but his contribution to early Rock n Roll is evident.
Thankfully, “The Day The Music Died” has not reoccurred and we have not lost multiple artists at once as we did that cold, January night. Sadly though, much of what they started, the happy be-bop music and danceable rockabilly hits died with them.
