February 3, 1959. It was the day that Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), and Richie Valens died in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa. And it was, really, the day that the music died.
When I started this blog back in 2016, the first song that I featured was Dearest by Buddy Holly. The song is beautiful. And Buddy Holly was a genius. He was a major influence on The Beatles. And he remains near and dear to my heart. I could listen to Buddy Holly anytime. Anywhere.
Buddy would be 82 if he was alive today. It's hard to imagine where his career would have taken him if he hadn't died tragically when he was 22. (But it wouldn't surprise me if he had, at some point, been a mainstay on the Las Vegas Strip. Know what I mean?)
So, on this 60th anniversary of the day that the music died, let's hear an interview with Buddy Holly shortly before he died, and then here is a live version of Buddy Holly and The Crickets doing Peggy Sue on a TV show called The Arthur Murray Dance Party on December 29, 1957.