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#OTD little thread to follow, featuring clips from many people, including ... Jayne Mansfield. Read on. Or listen on. Or whatever.
There was already a lot wrong w/that particular tour. The gigs were geographically far apart and yet were set up back to back - the distances were too long to travel by bus so they chartered a plane. A lot of the guys on tour were sick. It was an icy winter.
So about the Big Three: each fascinating in their own way. Richard Steven Valenzuela, aka Ritchie Valens, is mainly known for “La Bamba”, a Mexican folk song he adapted into rock ‘n’ roll - the song still gets regular radio play to this day.
Valens was a pioneer. His success represented yet another broadening of this new-fangled music's scope and possibility. He inspired generations to follow, Carlos Santana and others.
J.P. Richardson, Jr. (aka The Big Bopper) was originally a DJ - with that crazy booming DJ voice. He hit paydirt with Chantilly Lace, w/that ear-grabbing opening spoken-word: "Hellooooooo bay-beh!" Here he is performing it live.
And here's where Jayne Mansfield comes into the story. Chantilly Lace was so huge, she recorded a response song - basically what the girl was saying to The Big Bopper on the other end of the telephone line.
Buddy Holly hailed from Lubbock. He and his band The Crickets eventually appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 3 times, and Ed was famously cautious about the revved-up frankly sexual energy they brought. But oh well. Ya can't fight a tidal wave.
Sullivan was particularly concerned about Buddy Holly's song "Oh Boy" which is not really a sweet-teenage-love song so much as it is a dry-humping-for-hours-at-the-drive-in song. The kids #feltseen.
Buddy Holly had more famous songs than "Ting a Ling" but imo this one still jumps out the speakers and I think, "If I was 15 years old and heard this on the radio for the 1st time, I would have to go to my room immediately for some 'alone time.'"
JESUS THAT SONG.
After the plane crash, Elvis, stationed in Germany, wrote a letter expressing dismay that he wouldn't be allowed to come to the funeral. Heavily edited - probably by EP's dad. Anything approaching "They won't let me come home" was edited out. The final paragraph is so pure.
Then followed a spate of tribute songs. Rockabilly God Eddie Cochran recorded a touching song for the three dead men called “Three Stars.” He would be killed the following year in a car accident, making it FOUR new stars in the night sky.
In 1961, the Joe-Meek-produced Mike Berry and The Outlaws recorded “Tribute to Buddy Holly”- deemed "too morbid" by TPTB at radio stations - not too much radio play - but we have it now. It's beautiful.
Nerd alert: In the 4th episode of QUANTUM LEAP, Sam and Al are in 1950s Texas - and in the background, a kid in glasses is working on a song thruout the episode about a "piggy". Finally, Sam suggests maybe changing "Piggy" to "Peggy." Light bulb over kids' head. Thanks, Sam.
I'm almost done, but this thread wouldn't be complete without a small discussion about Waylon Jennings. He was on that original 1959 tour. He looked at Buddy Holly as an older brother/mentor. He plays guitar on some of the earliest BH tracks.
Waylon Jennings gave up his spot on the plane. He joked to Buddy as they parted, "Hope the plane crashes!" Just a joke. But he was haunted for years - maybe always - by that comment, and by giving up his spot.
Here's Buddy and Waylon in a photo booth in Grand Central Station, 1959, a month before the crash. Kind of heart-breaking to look at.
In almost every concert Jennings gave, he paid tribute to his old friend. In fact, he wrote a song about Holly called "Old Friend":
Jennings would also play medleys of Holly's songs:
When I was 5 years old, for Show n Tell day in kindergarten - kids brought in their gerbils, GI Joes, dolls. I, however, stood up in front of the class and sang the entirety of "American Pie", memorized from my parents' album. I mean ... this is so on-brand for me and I was 5.
Nowadays, someone would have recorded it and I would have gone viral. But it's lost in the mists of time. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear this 5-year-old girl sing "Would you teach me how to dance reeeeeeal slowwwwww."
I didn't even know what the song was about but I was obsessed and I remember that it made me so sad. But I didn't even know why. Sheila, go and play in the dirt. Stop listening to this sad song from way before your time. LOL. And so, to quote Tenacious D: this is my tribute.
Oh I forgot: one other childhood memory, at the height of my obsession w/"American Pie." We lived in a house by some railroad tracks. Literally the wrong side of the tracks. My mother would walk to a nearby deli for food w/me and baby brother in a stroller.
And I somehow had it in my head that this deli was the "sacred store" in "American Pie" where Don McLean "heard the music years before but the man there said the music wouldn't play." Every time I walked into it, I felt the melancholy of the lost music. Sheila: lighten up.
Every time I listened to the song - which was ... always - I saw that corner deli in my mind's eye when the "sacred store" came up and I wondered if the guy behind the counter was the man who said there was no more music. WTF.
I asked my mother out of the blue, "Is this the sacred store?" She had no idea what I was referring to, and was worried her 5 year old was having some sort of religious visitation. But no. It was "American Pie." Deli now a pizza parlor. I STILL think of it as the sacred store.
