Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week’s edition of Music Monday.

(Image found online.  Original source unknown.)

February 3 will mark the 63rd anniversary of “The Day The Music Died”. On that day in 1959 three musical artists-Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens & Jiles Perry (J.P.) Richardson, a/k/a “The Big Bopper”-along with their pilot were killed in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa. All three performed as part of The Winter Dance Party Tour just hours before. The cause of the crash was never determined but it remains one of the biggest tragedies to ever occur in music history.

Many people were affected by this devastating event but only one put it into words in such an eloquent stirring way set to music. It was released 12 years after the crash in to a world that looked completely different than it did on that winter’s night in 1959. Yet it struck a nerve with nearly everyone who heard it and gave the singer & the three musicians who died over a decade earlier a perfect narrative to mark their places in history.

“But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died“.

Top (L-R): Jiles Perry (J.P.) Richardson, a/k/a “The Big Bopper”, Buddy Holly & Ritchie Valens. Bottom: Don Mclean’s 1971 album. (Images found online.  Original sources unknown.)

Don McLean: “American Pie” (1971, written by Don McLean).

Stay safe & well.