You may have heard the phrase, “The day the music died”, immortalized by Don McLean in his signature song “American Pie” (8 minutes, 33 seconds long). The day the music died was 3-Feb-1959.
On this day in 1959, rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorehead, Minnesota. ( http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-day-the-music-died )
In American Pie, Don McLean paid tribute to Buddy Holly in particular. Indeed, Buddy Holly’s seminal songs influenced so many rockers who came after him, including Don. I do not have anything original to add to the vast amount of information about Buddy Holly ( and Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson) that you can find on the above website as well as on Wikipedia, among others.
What I want to know is, “Where were you when the music died”?
I was in my final year of complete childhood carefree abandonment, before beginning school the following year. At that age, my music taste was largely influenced by whatever my elder teenage siblings cared to play on the wobbly turntable or whatever was being aired over the AM radio. To be honest, I don’t recall Buddy Holly but Elvis Presley, Neil Sedaka, Paul Anka, Johnny Tillotson, Chubby Checker, Cliff Richard…..Of course in later years, I recalled Buddy Holly and grew to love his songs.
So where were you when the music died?
Ha ha ha, I was not even 7 then. Was catching spiders on that day. When the plane went down, I was in deep slumber.
Thought those glowing valves in my dad’s Philips radio were singers or Patrick Teoh, but don’t remember one resembling Buddy.
Listening to Buddy now, wonder how the sound engineers in them days managed to make such good recordings. Have we progressed much since?
The CD was invented in 1976 and the first albums on CD were released in 1982. The probability is very high that your Buddy Holly CD was re-mastered.
I have no recollection at all of this day – all my elder siblings went to Chinese schools & I was exposed to songs by those old Chinese singers of 40s & 50s, can’t even remember their names.
But till this day, I still enjoy listening to all these oldies & do sing them at our family Karaoke sessions.
Hello Pewee gang, Recalling the good young days eh. Let you all in on a secret. Remember the time when we were at 303, Jln mahmood , Baling? Me and Tai Kwai Tau, got the 3 innocent guys, Hiong, Annie and Foo to sit at the stairs at the back of the house. Then we threw pebbles at them and blame it on the hantu. All of you got very scared and believe it. Ha Ha Ha
Yes. I can still remember the ghost throwing pebbles incident. The three of us were really scared stiff and believed that it was the real thing. How naive and stupid of us to be so easily tricked by Ms. Tai and you.
I was only 2 years old on that day the music died in Feb 1959. Can remember nothing. Totally blank. However later during the 1960s I love to listen to songs by the Herman’s Hermits, Beatles, cliff Richard, Tremeloes, the Hollies, Gary Puckette & Union gap, The Thunderbirds, Naomi & the Boys, The Quests, the Strollers, bla…bla… thanks to my cousins from the Chee family who loved music back in the sixties. This particular song, “Great Big World” by The Rocky Fellas of the Philippines brought back fond memories of Alor Star and my favourite cousin. As the “Tai Kwai Tau” in Cantonese , she was the leader of our childhood gang.
Hi favourite cousin. Not many people know the song Great Big World. Yah it brought back good memories and your favourite group Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Had so much wonderful memories. Thanks for reminding me. The childhood days were fun, will never be the same for the kids of today. They will never really know what life was like especially the old games as mentioned by KL.
Tai Kwai Tau
Where was i on this date? i was 5 years old. and living in Kulim. There was no TV, and no interest in radio. Wonder what brands were available at that time. Philips, Hitachi, JVC?? Most probably
I am making a nuisance of myself helping my mum bake coconut cookies for chinese new year which falls on February 08
Our radio was a Blaupunkt Grundig, I think.
TV (black-n-white) came to the country a few years later; we had a NEC 14-inch twin-speakers TV then.