The Day the music died.

Play American Pie, Don Mclean, youtube with lyrics.

They call it "The Day the Music Died." On February 3rd, 1959, a plane carrying Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson Jr. (aka the Big Bopper), and Richie Valens crashed not long after takeoff, killing the pilot and all three musicians  See if you can answer the following trivia questions about "the day the music died."

Why Were Those Three on the Plane to Begin With?
The three were on a winter concert tour with Dion and the Belmonts, and they were playing nearly 24 concerts in less than a month. They were all traveling by tour bus initially, but the bus had severe mechanical problems including a lack of heat. Remember, they were traveling through the Upper Midwest in February—a lack of heat is not a tiny thing that can be ignored. Holly decided to charter a plane for himself and two band members, but Valens and Richardson managed to snag the seats instead. Valens won a coin toss, and Richardson convinced another band member to give him the seat because he was ill. The rest of the musicians continued on by bus.

Which Musicians Were Almost on That Plane?
Waylon Jennings was a guitarist for Buddy Holly and nearly ended up on the plane before giving up his seat to J.P. Richardson.  Dion, of Dion and the Belmonts, was supposed to go along with Holly on the plane. However, the high price tag of the seat—this was a time when musicians were not earning millions of dollars, remember—convinced Dion he was better off on the bus. As for those musicians who gave up their seats, one was Tommy Allsup, who went on to produce records, and the other was Waylon Jennings, the future country superstar. Jennings was particularly distraught after the crash because he and Holly had engaged in some light banter about each other's transportation having problems. Holly joked that he hoped the bus broke down again. Jennings joked that he hoped the plane would crash. Obviously, Jennings had nothing to do with the crash, but this tormented him for years.

What Songs Were Written about the Accident?
In 1971, singer-songwriter Don McLean released "American Pie," a song that forever immortalized the 1959 plane accident as "the day the music died." The song is about this loss and how it affected life afterward. McLean has said that he wrote the song as a way to salute Buddy Holly and the effect Holly had on McLean as a child and teenager; Holly's music had been a beacon of light in what was otherwise a rather restricted, poor life.  Although McLean has been notoriously tight-lipped about the precise meaning of the song's lyrics, he did acknowledge that he originally learned about the accident as he folded newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 4, 1959. This is reflected in the song's lines "February made me shiver/With every paper I'd deliver." A less well-known musical tribute to Holly, Richardson, and Valens was recorded by fellow performer Eddie Cochran not long after their deaths. However, that song, "Three Stars," was released posthumously after Cochran's death in 1960 and failed to achieve the popularity later enjoyed by "American Pie."

What Were the Results of the Plane Crash Investigation?
An investigation conducted by the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the accident was due to inexperience by the pilot and to the bad weather. Although the pilot had over 50 hours of training on instruments, he had not become qualified to fly only on instruments, which was necessary due to the weather conditions. In addition, his training had been on planes that used an artificial horizon. The Bonanza was equipped with a gyroscope instead. For whatever reason, music lovers suffered a great loss that day.