“Top” Ten Music Aviation Tragedies: Buddy Holly (#2)

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After a lovely week in eastern Texas (never went west of Dallas) it’s time to head to Louisiana and a visit with my friends who live around Alexandria. Before I hit the road I need to post the most obvious person on this sad list of musicians who lost their lives in aviation accidents. #2: Buddy Holly He wasn’t the first musician to die in a plane crash (there were four crashes on this list that happened earlier than 1959) or on the road (Milton Brown died in a car wreck in 1936). However, to paraphrase Don McLean, something touched us deep inside the day the music died. Holly, along with previously-featured passengers Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, were, however, the first big tragedy of the rock and roll era. The tragedy was compounded by the ages of those aboard: the oldest person was 28 (JP Richardson). Contrast that with country music’s “day the music died,” where the youngest person was 30-year-old Patsy Cline. They’re all terrible. You can’t quantify or qualify the loss of a musician, just as you can’t do that with any human being. But, as McLean said, there was something about this one. Maybe because King Elvis was off in Germany, serving in the Army, everyone had such high hopes for Holly. Unlike Elvis, Buddy wrote his own songs, after all. And parents who didn’t care for Elvis’ gyrations liked nice, clean-cut Buddy. The cause of the crash was the pilot taking off in bad weather without the clearance to fly on instruments. In this case, snow and cold compounded the issued, because big planes have a problem with snow and ice. You can only imagine what it would do to a four-seater. There’s a line from Cricket Sonny Curtis’ song “The Real Buddy Holly Story” that’s over a display in the Surf Ballroom, the place with Buddy, JP, and Ritchie played before their deaths. It addresses McLean’s song in a positive way: And, you know, the levee ain’t dry And the music didn’t die ’Cause Buddy Holly lives every time we play rock and roll True. I just wish Buddy had lived to be an elder statesman of rock. Buddy Holly Born Charles Hardin Holley September 6, 1936 - February 2, 1959 (age 22) Place of crash: Clear Lake, Iowa We had this 45 when I was kid, so “Everyday” has always been one of my favorite Buddy Holly songs: