Did ANY LA area music radio station mention the significance of this or at least play "American Pie"? (like I just heard played on 107.1 The Peak WXPK-FM White Plains, NY). Just wonderin'
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February 3, 1959 The Day the Music Died
- Thread starter SuperRadioFan
- Start date
To identify with that date, you have to be about 70 or older. Most stations would question the relevance to their listeners.
That said, it might make a good morning show bit. But then you run into the issue that, while the plane crash took place nearly 60 years ago, even back then there was confusion, discussion and debate about what the song itself actually meant. To do a bit based on the song, you'd have to explain the lyrics and you'd end up boring folks to death. To just mention the crash, you'd have to explain who the artists were to a world that has long passed them by.
Radio has passed them by. The world has not.
Just this morning I heard The Big Bopper's signature song (on the radio no less).
And as someone who was not generally aware of pop music in 1962 (I was 7 and knew of the Twist only as a funny dance, not a song) but was by the mid-'60s, I can say that very little if anything was made of the so-called "day the music died" on radio until McLean wrote and recorded that song. Holly, Valens and Big Bopper were just three guys whose hits I used to hear on WRKO's "gold" weekends. Holly meant as much to me as Gene Chandler or Mary Wells did. You'd think that if the events of Feb. 3, 1962, were comparable to those of Dec. 8, 1980, that they would have been general knowledge to anyone listening to popular music before 1972, but they weren't. It wasn't until the oldies format emerged and stations started playing a bunch of Buddy Holly songs plus "La Bamba" and "Chantilly Lace" every Feb. 3 that people started thinking of that date as a momentous one in musical history.
Speaking of Dec. 8, 1980, classic rock stations still mark the day John Lennon died, but I'm not sure classic hits stations whose focus has shifted to late '70s-early '90s still give a damn. They probably don't need to.
He was a disc jockey of modest talent who had a couple of novelty hits, one of which found its way into a movie. If anyone deserves to be passed by...
If you were in high school that February day in 1959 as I was it would have been the most socially traumatic day of your life up to that point. During the 50's a number of artists had died in crashes of various kinds but it was almost always only one at a time. In 1959 Buddy Holly's music was huge and "La Bamba" was just catching on and carried with it a potential Latino audience that had not heard their music on "white" radio before. J.P. Richardson was a well known DJ and had just completed "Chantilly Lace" which exposed him to a whole other audience outside his radio gig. To have all three die at once was a huge event in the lives of most teens of the day.
To say their deaths, and music, also died that day is just not true. Holly remained very influential in the world of Rock and Roll and was the source for many songs in the next decade. The Top 40 music of those days did not stay static and dwelling on their deaths would not have been acceptable to the radio stations of those days and definitely not to their audiences but that did not mean the artists and their music were not heard until "The Day The Music Died" is widely incorrect. Those of us who lived through this tragedy knew instantly what that song meant.
To say their deaths, and music, also died that day is just not true. Holly remained very influential in the world of Rock and Roll and was the source for many songs in the next decade. The Top 40 music of those days did not stay static and dwelling on their deaths would not have been acceptable to the radio stations of those days and definitely not to their audiences but that did not mean the artists and their music were not heard until "The Day The Music Died" is widely incorrect. Those of us who lived through this tragedy knew instantly what that song meant.
Valens would have been significant there, I suppose.
Also, I had a major brainfart on the year. 1959, not 1962. No idea where that came from!
In 1959 the Hispanic (although the term was not "invented" until the 70's) population was not large in most of the US. LA Hispanics were mostly later generation English speakers since the War period and the 50's had produced little inbound migration.
In fact, Ricardo Valenzuela's name was sanitized to make it sound more "American" and the big hit was "Donna" and not "La Bamba" at the time.
J.P.Richardson was a DJ in Beaumont, TX, a very small market. He was riding on his only hit, a novelty song.
I was subbing for a friend who had a paper route. I untied the bundle of Plain Dealers and saw the headline and was definitely affected as I was a major Buddy Holly fan with every album and single he made in my collection. The unfortunate death of the other two was minor compared to the loss of Holly.
As far as I'm concerned, any day American Pie is NOT played on the radio is a good day.
It was a great bathroom / smoke / sex break song.
--As far as I'm concerned, any day American Pie is NOT played on the radio is a good day.--
Agreed
Agreed
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Holly created/popularized a new brand of music and thus inspired interpretation by a whole generation of musicians. Listen to the Beatles talk about Holly for instance and you get some idea of his influence but he went way beyond just the Beatles.
Presley innovated the physical presentation of "black" music into the white teen audience. He invented nothing musically but he was a talented singer.
I think if you are talking about music itself Holly is far more important than Elvis. If you are talking showmanship then Elvis was obviously the brighter star.
I am guessing that my generation gets somewhat nostalgic whenever they hear American Pie because they can relate to both the song itself and the events that it references. Much the same as my parents listening to "White Cliffs of Dover". Like any other song you either like it or not. It remains one of my favorites. I would not expect my kids to listen to it the same way I do.
Yet they both have their roots in hillbilly music. Compare what Elvis was doing in Memphis on Sun to what Holly was doing in Clovis, and they're very similar. Both used small combos, just like Cash.
The Beatles are equally passionate about both Holly & Presley. But yes, as Paul once said, before you could have The Beatles, you had The Crickets.
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Exactly. Elevating him to the importance of Holly, or even Valens/Valenzuela, is preposterous. What if the crash had taken place in 1976 and the people on board were Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel and Rick Dees. Wonder was already being celebrated for groundbreaking recordings in the r&b genre. Joel had had his first hit only three years earlier and it was far too early to tell how he'd be remembered. And Dees was a Memphis disc jockey who was riding a novelty hit. How do you think teens of that time would take the news that all three were dead? And if a 1990s Don McLean were to record a 7-minute song about their deaths, would that magically turn that tragic moment in 1976 into a generational watershed for the listeners who remember the day it happened?
"Quack" back at you!
David, that assumes management actually cares about relevance. I listen to news and talk on iHeart radio where I have to suffer through filler pieces that recall the top hits of 1971. I'm a news/talk listener. I couldn't care less about the top hits of 1971. It's completely irrelevant.
I didn't see anyone doing that. But just think, if the coin toss had gone differently Waylon Jennings would have died in that plane crash instead of J.P. Richardson and we would be discussing a Country star that never was.
Management knows that their product is listening. Of course they care about relevance. What you find irrelevant others may find very interesting. You are addressing an issue of personal preference, not management's disregard for listeners.
Personally, I would enjoy an occasional mention of what the hits were in a "in a day like today" feature. For decades those memory pieces have been attractive to, at least, Boomers and Gen X listeners.
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