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It's been 50 years since Buddy Holly crash, and for one generation, it meant everything
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Sunday, Feb 01, 2009
On Feb. 3, 1959, a Beechcraft Bonanza with an inexperienced pilot crashed into a cornfield in Iowa.
The passengers — singer/songwriters Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. ''the Big Bopper'' Richardson — and pilot Roger Peterson were all killed, giving a young musical genre called rock 'n' roll its first major casualties.
Five decades later, the Surf Ballroom, the site of the trio's final concert, is being named a Rock 'n' Roll Landmark by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and thousands of fans are expected to migrate to Clear Lake, Iowa, this weekend to take part in 50 Winters Later, a tribute culminating with a big concert Monday night. It will feature professed fans such as Graham Nash, Wanda Jackson and Los Lobos to honor Holly, Valens and Richardson.
For many boomers, the impact of the crash, immortalized as ''the Day the Music Died'' in Don McLean's classic 81/2-minute song American Pie, is still one of the defining moments in rock history. But for younger fans, even those who know their early rock music mainstays, that title may seem like self-absorbed generational hyperbole, as throughout rock's storied near-60-year history, many, many rockers have died in equally and, in some cases, even more spectacular and tragic ways.
Additionally, though Holly recorded prolifically, allowing albums to be released a decade after his death, he spent only two years in the rock 'n' roll spotlight. Teenaged Valens had released only two singles, and the Big Bopper was riding the success of his novelty hit, Chantilly Lace.
So why is this tragedy ''the Day the Music Died''?
At the time, Elvis Presley was the swaggering, singing, shimmying embodiment of teenage desires and an obvious threat to decent, moral 1950s American society. Other seminal rock legends such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard were, you know, ''colored'' guys making what was still considered by many to be crossover ''race music,'' another obvious threat to decent, moral society.
But while the three performers on the ill-fated Winter Dance Party Tour — Buddy Holly with his thin lanky frame, horn-rimmed glasses; teenaged Chicano newcomer Ritchie Valens; and the affable Big Bopper — were playing this ''dangerous'' music, they didn't fit the now traditional rock 'n' roll rebel image inspired by Marlon Brando's dungaree-clad scofflaws in The Wild Ones and James Dean's tortured teen in Rebel Without A Cause.
Terry Stewart, president and chief executive of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was in Clear Lake for the anniversary to name the Surf Ballroom a landmark. He believes one reason the crash was so important is that it inadvertently delineated a crucial moment in rock and societal history, when young people were just discovering they had a voice and that this new voice could be silenced.
''There is an emotional side, the freeing of the emotions,'' Stewart said about the allure of early rock for youngsters.
''The word 'teenager' doesn't show up until the early '40s and now, suddenly, you have these kids making music for other kids, expressing all their own thoughts. So, yes, Elvis was threatening because he had some racial, black overtones, while Holly wasn't quite that way. But to the parents in general, this was still heresy kind of music. It certainly wasn't something they liked.''
All 3 pioneers
Interestingly, all three artists had short musical careers but are considered pioneers in their own ways. Holly and Valens have been enshrined in the rock hall, in 1986 and 2001, respectively.
Valens was rock's first Chicano star, scoring a hit with the Mexican folk song La Bamba. He was an actual teenager singing to actual teens.
J.P. Richardson was not only a record-breaking radio DJ (in 1957, he broadcast for five days straight, playing more than 1,800 records), but he is also credited with coining the term ''music video'' in 1959. At the time of his death, he was planning on producing music videos for television.
Of the three, it is Holly's influence that cuts the deepest and widest path through rock music. The Beatles, growing up thousands of miles away from Holly's hometown of Lubbock, Texas, named their band in part because of Holly's backing band, the Crickets. Both Paul McCartney and John Lennon imitated Holly's trademark vocal hiccups in their early tunes, while one of the Rolling Stones' early hits was Holly's Not Fade Away.
While Holly was not the first to use multitracking (Les Paul invented the technique), he is credited with bringing it to rock music at a time when most artists simply set up in a big room with a single microphone and hit the record button. Holly was also one of rock's earliest accomplished singer/songwriters, writing classic rockabilly-flavored tunes such as Oh, Boy and Rave On, along with deceptively complex songs such as the ballad It Doesn't Matter Anymore with its gentle shuffle, and Raining in My Heart. Both of those songs included plinking string arrangements and a few more chords than expected in the average rock song of the day.
His band setup, prominent use of the Fender Stratocaster and his desire to control his music and the people profiting from it were largely uncharted territory.
British songwriter Tony Macaulay recently described Holly's effect on young fans to London-based newspaper the Independent thusly:
''Most people in the late '50s were into Elvis Presley, but Holly was the nerd's hero. He wasn't very sexual or particularly good-looking, but he had great warmth and he invented the two guitars, bass, drums lineup as we understand it now. He got more spotty, pre-pubescent boys writing songs and playing the guitar than anybody else, and I was one of them. His death had such an impact on young boys, more so I think than if Elvis Presley had died.''
Additionally, today's rock fans have grown up with the genre as an established, dominant musical part of their lives. We are accustomed to the now-cliched dangers of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, such as ridiculous amounts of potentially dangerous travel, between-gig downtime allowing for the acquisition of bad (and deadly) habits, and being surrounded by sycophants who won't tell you when you're out of control, to name a few of the pitfalls.
But in 1959, there was no rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Teenagers, still excited to have a form of music all to themselves, couldn't fathom the idea of losing one of their new heroes. And they had no way of knowing that in a few years, the 1960s would upend nearly every aspect of Eisenhower's nice, quiet '50s American dream.
'One of us'
But still, the Day the Music Died?
''It is a difficult thing to wrap your arms around, but I think you have to put into perspective where we are and the history of the music. Here are three big, young names that suddenly are extinguished, and it had not happened before like that,'' Stewart said.
''Sure, Glenn Miller dies in a plane crash in the 1940s and it's a loss, but we don't think about that as 'one of us.' This was a new time, a new era, and the music resonated with young people, and their emotions are different than when they are adults and they're different when you have had 20 or 30 years of this music being the soundtrack of your life. This just came at a point when it was just becoming our music and our time, and then suddenly, it's 'how could this be possible that these people are gone?' ''
A young rock fan may never fully understand the impact of the crash and its importance in rock history. But rock music's history is littered with the obituaries of stars who died young. Kurt Cobain is probably the most recent example of a rock star who spoke (or at least mumbled and screamed) to and for a sizable chunk of a generation, and whose life was snuffed out early, though by his own hands.
April 5 will mark the 15th anniversary of Cobain's death (has it already been 15 years?) and like the early rock legends to varying degrees, a cottage industry has sprung up following his death. In fact, in 2006, the already long-dead rock star's image and music earned his widow, Courtney Love, $50 million, surpassing Presley, who had led the list of top-earning dead celebrities for four years in a row (Presley reclaimed the title in '07).
Chances are thousands of supposedly apathetic Generation X-ers will show up in Seattle to commiserate and honor Cobain's equally brief legacy, the way folks are gathering in Clear Lake.
And just as many Gen Xers and younger folks may be baffled by dedicated fans' pilgrimages this weekend, many boomers will be just as mystified by the sadness Cobain's death generated in their sons and daughters.
It's one of the nebulous things that makes pop music an integral part of most of our young lives. Each generation finds its voice in part through the music it is listening to because at that moment, that music is all about their lives, reflecting it either directly through pertinent lyrics or simply by being the soundtrack to important moments at a time when important moments happen frequently.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. ''the Big Bopper'' Richardson didn't release a lot of music during their lifetimes and, of course, the music didn't really die with them.
But through just a few songs and their untimely deaths, they touched and, in some cases, changed millions of lives.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
On Feb. 3, 1959, a Beechcraft Bonanza with an inexperienced pilot crashed into a cornfield in Iowa.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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hudson, oh
Posted 09:20 AM, 02/02/2009
T'won't be nothin' til' the day Kieth Richards dies.
Akron, OH
Posted 12:52 PM, 02/02/2009
Where is everyone?? You'd think the 50th year of one of the major events of rock n roll would have more than one comment.
As for me, wish I could be at the Surf Ballroom on Tueday.
