Brad Bechtel wrote:
> And it's my 45th birthday.
>
> -B "halfway to 90" B-
Happy Birthday Brad! According to today's paper, you share birthdays
with:
Matraca Berg-35
Maura Tierney-34
Lee Renaldo-43
Nathan Lane-43
Morgan Fairchild-49
Dave Davies-52
Joey Bishop-81
Here's a clip about "The Day..."
> Rock pioneers remembered 40 years after the music died
>
> By Gary Graff
>
> DETROIT (Reuters) - Forty years ago, Bob Keane was driving on Los Angeles' famed
>Sunset Boulevard toward the offices of
> his Del-Fi Records when the devastating news came over his car radio.
>
> ``The DJ on my radio said '... and now, the late, great Ritchie Valens,''' recalled
>Keane, whose label released Valens' records.
> ``It was like somebody hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat.''
>
> The full news was even worse; rockers Buddy Holly and J.P. ''The Big Bopper''
>Richardson had been killed along with Valens
> in a plane crash in Iowa around 1 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1959.
>
> It was the first tragedy of the formative rock 'n' roll era, robbing pop culture of
>three of its most promising young talents. Holly
> was 22, Valens was 17 and Richardson was 28.
>
> It was, as Don McLean coined the phrase in his 1971 hit ''American Pie,'' the day
>the music died.
>
> ``The impact of the event, of the crash of the plane, hit me because I was in love
>with Buddy Holly's music,'' says McLean, who
> was a 13-year-old paperboy who learned of the accident when he picked up his stack
>of morning deliveries. ``I tucked that
> memory away, and many years later it returned to me.''
>
> ROCK AND ROLL IS HERE TO STAY
>
> The irony, of course, is that the music didn't exactly die; rock ultimately thrived
>and became a mainstream force in popular
> culture during the next decade.
>
> But rock 'n' roll was moribund for a time after the crash; Elvis Presley was in the
>Army, Jerry Lee Lewis had fallen from grace
> for marrying his cousin; Little Richard had entered the ministry; and Chuck Berry
>was being prosecuted for transporting a minor
> across state lines. Their places were beginning to be taken by bland pop singers and
>early teen idols such as Pat Boone.
>
> At the time of their deaths, Holly and Valens in particular were rock's great hopes,
>though former radio personality Richardson
> also was riding high with his smash ``Chantilly Lace.'' Valens had shot to fame with
>hit singles such as ''Donna'' and his
> adrenalized rendition of the Mexican-influenced ``La Bamba'' riding the charts.
>
> But Holly was the most established talent of the three. Born Charles Hardin Holley
>in Lubbock, Texas, he emerged with his
> band the Crickets in 1957 and reeled off a string of hits such as ``That'll Be the
>Day,'' ``Peggy Sue,'' ``Oh Boy!,'' ``Maybe
> Baby'' and ``Rave On.''
>
> ``His stuff sounds so positive and so life-affirming, just shoe-ringing major chords
>and those happy melodies,'' says Marshall
> Crenshaw, who portrayed Holly in ``La Bamba,'' the 1987 film biography of Valens.
>
> ``He was really savvy about the recording studio, too, and that really influenced
>the Beatles. The Beatles were glued to every
> Buddy Holly record.
>
> ``I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Buddy Holly was the single
>most important influence on the Beatles. They
> knew exactly how those records were done and where Buddy Holly was coming from, and
>they copied his approach.''
>
> In fact, former Beatles Paul McCartney was so enamored with Holly that he bought his
>song catalog during the mid-'70s from
> Norman Petty, who produced the bulk of Holly's hits at his studio in Clovis, N.M.
>
> COME ON, LET'S GO
>
> Holly, Valens and Richardson were in the midst of the Winter Dance Party, a concert
>tour through the Northern Plains states
> made miserable by an underheated bus, lack of sleep and no time to bathe or do
>laundry.
>
> When the troupe hit the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly learned that it
>might be possible to lease a plane. For $108
> he could save himself another long bus ride and instead get some much-needed rest
>and perhaps some time for a lengthy
> telephone chat with his wife, Maria Elena, who was five weeks pregnant.
>
> Holly originally intended to take his bandmates, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup
>(billed as the Crickets even though the
> name was in dispute at the time), but Richardson persuadedJennings to give him his
>seat while Valens pestered Allsup until
> Holly's sideman agreed to a coin toss -- which Valens won.
>
> ``He used to say, 'I'll never ride in those kinds of planes,'' recalled Valens'
>aunt, Ernestine Reyes, adding that Valens was afraid
> of small aircraft after two of them had collided above his junior high school,
>killing two students. ``I guess he was really
> miserable on that bus.''
>
> The Beechcraft Bonanza plane was discovered the following day, its debris strewn
>across a frozen cornfield 7 miles northwest
> of the airport where it took off. An error by pilot Roger Peterson is thought to
>have caused the crash.
>
> The next show in Moorhead, Minn., went on, as did the tour, with singers such as
>Bobby Vee, Frankie Avalon and others filling
> in. Holly's wife suffered a miscarriage two days after the crash.
>
> RAVE ON
>
> Although the tragedy has become one of rock's great legends, ``American Pie'' writer
>McLean remembers that it was viewed
> differently at the time.
>
> ``It's very difficult in 1999 for people to remember just how insignificant rock 'n'
>roll singers were to the public at large,''
> McLean says. ``They were important to kids, but they weren't important to the
>culture. They were a novelty, pretty much, with
> Elvis (Presley) being the biggest novelty and all the others being little novelties
>of one sort or another -- especially contrasted to
> what was 'normal,' like Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and orchestra
>music.
>
> ``American Pie'' -- an 8 1/2-minute parable about American sociology and pop culture
>-- helped jump-start the legend of the
> crash; author John Goldrosen even credits the song's chart-topping success with
>helping him secure a publishing contract for his
> highly regarded ``Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography.''
>
> The also was memorialized in 1978's ``The Buddy Holly Story,'' starring Gary Busey,
>as well as in ``La Bamba.''
>
> Holly was one of the initial inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986,
>and MCA Records -- which has released
> several posthumous Holly collections, is planning one more this year as part of its
>Millennium series.
>
> The crash's 40th anniversary is being remembered, too.
>
> The VH1 cable network debuts a segment of its ``Behind the Music'' dedicated to
>``The Day the Music Died'' on Feb. 3, while
> a reenactment of the Winter Dance Party has been wending its way through the
>original tour's route, finishing at the Surf
> Ballroom, which holds an annual concert in memory of the three musicians.
>
> ``I still love Buddy Holly in spite of the fact that he's become the Franklin Mint
>version of what it was that I remember, due to
> the fact that he has been deified,'' says McLean, who acknowledges that, via
>``American Pie,'' ``I had a hand in that, and I
> guess it's all right.''
>
