The Day the Music Died

HoustonChronicle.com - 46 years after crash, 'Big Bopper's' legend alive: "Feb. 3, 2005, 6:42AM
Long after 'day the music died,' the Big Bopper's legend lives on
Rock 'n' roll's 1st tragedy claimed the star from Beaumont 46 years ago today
By RON FRANSCELL
Beaumont Enterprise

Chronicle File
J.P. 'Jape' Richardson's flamboyant alter ego, 'The Big Bopper,' used a prop phone in his act. The Texan songwriter was 28 when he died.
CLEAR LAKE, IOWA - The plane crash that took the lives of J.P. 'Big Bopper' Richardson, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens is one of rock music's pivotal moments, more significant than an electrified Dylan or that little show at Woodstock.

Why?

After the crash in Clear Lake on Feb. 3, 1959, rock 'n' roll changed. Singer Don McLean immortalized the moment as 'the day the music died' in his pop-dirge American Pie. But it was Holly, Valens, the Bopper and their pilot who died. The music (and the audience) merely changed forever."

The whole article's worth a read if you can get to it without having to register. This is another one of those days that I remember all too well.