Rant #668: The Day the Music Died

Today is the 53rd anniversary of the so-called "The Day the Music Died," when a horrific plane crash took the lives of rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, better known as "The Big Bopper."

They perished in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, the first of many plane crashes that have taken the lives of rock stars over the years.

I remember when Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a plane crash, I wondered why so many had perished this way, including one of my favorites, Otis Redding.

I still don't have an answer. I guess the best that I can come up with is that since part of their job is traveling all over the country and the world, the chances that one will perish via a plane crash goes up because of the frequency of use.

If you go on a plane once a year, then your chances are much less than a person who goes on a plane 100 times a year.

I guess.

But the original rock and roll-related plane crash took three of the brightest stars on the music horizon at the time.

Buddy Holly was a trailblazer, one of the first rock stars with broad appeal. His music--including "Peggy Sue" and "Maybe Baby"--has influenced countless generations of musicians, including the Beatles, and the areas he was trailblazing then as someone barely out of his teens was astonishing. Too bad the world didn't get to hear what he had next up his sleeve.

Ritchie Valens may have been a lightning in the bottle-type of act, but we'll never know. As the first Latino rock star, his music--including "La Bamba"--blazed trails for all Hispanic acts that followed.

"The Big Bopper" was a novelty act, but a real good one. One of the first disc jockeys to have a hit record, his "Chantilly Lace" was a huge seller, and he also was a songwriter, writing "Running Bear" for Johnnie Preston.

This date was immortalized by Don McLean's "American Pie," bringing the fact that there was such a day to a new generation of listeners in the early 1970s.

Why are we so in-tune with the day?

I guess it has a lot to do with youth that goes way before its time. It's also the legendary "crash and burn" situation, where youth rides a quick rocket to stardom and then gets it all taken away from them.

It's like they made a deal with the devil and this was the payback. Since many in society at the time thought that rock and roll was the devil's music, I am sure many believed they got what they deserved.

But I can't help feel that we lost more than Holly, Valens and Richardson as a result of that crash.

We also lost our innocence to a certain degree, and that would come to the fore just three years later, when JFK was shot in Dallas.

So, on the 53rd anniversary of the three rockers' death--and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the passing of our President--let's reflect on what these personalities did during their lifetime, not what they could have done if these unfortunate things didn't snuff them out way before their time.