You have probably heard Don McLean’s song American Pie. In the song there is the phrase ‘The Day the Music Died’. At first when you listen to this song you may think the various phrases have no meaning to music but as you listen closer you will hear small facts about the musical world and the events behind these events. The phrase ‘The Day the Music Died’ refers to February 3rd 1959. On this day a small plane containing three of Americas well known rock n’ roll singers of that time crashed.

The singers were Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens. In the plane crash wreckage that was found all three of these singers and the pilot had died on impact from massive trauma wounds. It is for this reason that McLean’s song has the words that music died as three very promising singers who greatly influenced the music scene had their lives and careers cut short.

A variety of reasons led the three performers to taking a single engine Beechcraft Bonanza airplane to their performance venue. For Buddy Holly the bus traveling frustration is what lead him to choose to fly to the next venue, for Richardson his bout of flu had made the decision to fly as the ride to their next performance and for Valens it was a new experience that promoted him to ask to be one of the passengers in the plane.

Not long after the single engine airplane with its three passengers took, off the radio tower in Clear Lake, Iowa saw the tail light of the plane descending. This plus the flight plan file which was never called in prompted the tower to ask for a search operation into the whereabouts of the Beechcraft Bonanza airplane. Shortly after the search was begun the wreckage of the plane was found and its three dead passengers and pilot were also discovered.

Today you can find the memorial site where these three promising performers had their lives cut short in a private farm land. A stainless steel monument shows this location. It was in that crash that music died or as Don McLean’s put it that was ‘The Day the Music Died’.