'The Day The Music Died'

02/03/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(2/3/00, 10 a.m. ET) - On Feb. 3, 1959, a plane en route to Fargo, N.D. crashed following a rock 'n' roll concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all on board. Among the passengers on the plane were Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, better known as the Big Bopper.

In 1971, Don McLean's hit "American Pie" recounted the story of the news of that fateful crash on "the day the music died." McLean said he remembered learning about the crash and added that, back then, music and the people that made it weren't as big a part of American lives and culture. "It's very difficult for people to remember just how insignificant rock 'n' roll singers were to the public at large. They were important to kids, but they weren't important to culture. They were a novelty, thought of as a novelty pretty much --- Elvis [Presley] being the biggest novelty and all the others being little novelties of one sort or another."

Madonna recently recorded an updated version of McLean's "American Pie" for the soundtrack to the new film, The Next Best Thing, in which she stars opposite actor Rupert Everett (LAUNCH, 2/2).

In related news, 41 years after his death, a song Holly began writing is finally complete. Holly had scribbled some words on a page in a notebook and that page was purchased at auction years later by record executive Howard Thompson. Victor DeLorenzo, former drummer of alternative rock act Violent Femmes, said he had first seen the page in 1996 while visiting Thompson in New York; on a later visit, he took a closer look and realized the words were Holly's attempt at lyrics for an unfinished song.

DeLorenzo took the last line of the chorus and added music to the lyrics that were already written, "My whole idea was not to add anything," he told AP. "It was like my mind was in possession of Mr. Holly for 10 minutes." DeLorenzo said that he wants to perform the song, but he has no plans to record and release it.

-- Sue Falco, New York

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