There's a old picture of a plane crash that was taken on a barren and
snowblown field in Iowa. You may have seen it on the web but it is
perhaps the most unsettling reminder of the day that the music died. In
reality the music didn't die in 59 on a cold windy day in Iowa, after
Buddy Holly, tired of cold buses with no heaters decided to rent a
airplane to catch up on some laundry and get ready for another show in
the barren of winter. Sad to say that night at the Surf Ballroom turned
out to be the final showing of what could have been something that
could have changed the face of rock n roll. Buddy along with Richie
Valens were on their way to bigger and better things and JP Richardson
stuck big with a novelty hit but The Big Bopper was also a very good
songwriter and producer. Sadly that night, an Alberta Clipper was
coming from Canada and bringing the chill of a quick snowfall and heavy
winds and big drop in temps and with a pilot too eager to please and not
enough experience, it all led to the final finale.
It's a sad
feeling beyond knowing when you see the up and coming rock stars laying
face down in a cornfield, hoping they didn't suffer upon impact. Being
thrown out of the plane, I'm sure that may have been the cause but Roger
Peterson the unlucky pilot fared worse to the point that he was tangled
inside the plane. In front of the plane laid Richie, while Buddy was
to the side and wearing a lighter coat. The Big Bopper, got thrown
across the fence. All the promises of a new and exciting rock and roll
laid in the wasteland of some cornfield northwest of Mason City. And so
the story begins.
Driving home tonight from work, I felt the
weather that Buddy and JP and Richie may have gone through. We had a
Clipper go through, had a bit of a snowstorm, and felt the winds blow
stronger and the skies cleared off to reveal a chilly half moon. Not
unlike when they boarded the plane and headed into the teeth of a
Alberta Clipper, if only they would have waited.......
In my
band's I always wanted to be more like Buddy than Elvis but also growing
up with the sounds of The Who, I wanted to make something that sounded
like Buddy leading The Who and probably failed at that attempt. I
wondered tonight as I try to type this out, what made Buddy decide to
take a winter tour through the Midwest, into the dead of winter when
before global warming, the winters were just as a bitch as they are
today. It was the dark ages back then, no internet, no cds and no My
Space to showcase the happenings. Would have been wonderful had it was
possible. I suppose the great debate remains if Richie Valens would
have been the new king of rock and roll, or Buddy would have continued
his path with his general ideas from the Apartment tapes. Perhaps
Richie Valens would have defined rock and roll more so but with Buddy
and Richie passing away, rock and roll didn't die but it certainly was
in critical condition. Elvis Presley would go into the Army and never
would return to the wild rockabilly rock he did in the mid 50s, Jerry
Lee Lewis would marry his 13 year old cousin and piss off the world and
Little Richard gave up rock and roll at that time to be a preacher
against the devil music. And the only ones who carried on the rock and
roll spirit were Frankie Avalon, or Fabian or the ghastly Paul Anka and
their sanitized bubblegum rock.
It has been said that Elvis was
the king of rock and roll but to my Buddy Holly may not have not known
it at the time, but the British kids across the pond took his music to
heart and they started coming up with what would be known as the British
Invasion four years later with The Beatles leading the way and The
Hollies with their close knit harmonies to which you can hear in Buddy's
songs. But Buddy himself did follow the lead of Elvis Presley by
covering his songs out in his garage in Lubbock with Jerry Allison. But
although Elvis did choose great cover versions, Buddy stood out by
writing his own material which might led him to be into rock royalty
and so did Richie Valens. One of these two had they live may well
replace Elvis to the throne but in the course of history, Elvis did
return from the Army and still have the ladies and a fired up performances but most of his music after was not the same as it was in
the wild 50s.
50 years later, there was a sold out crowd at
the Surf Ballroom to celebrate the fifty years since Buddy's last
performance and even some of the guys that were there did show up to be
there. Tommy Allsup, Dion, Bobby Vee, they returned and so does the
fans of the music, braving the 5 degree weather just like it was back
then. Funny place about Iowa, it's paradise in the fall but hell in the
wintertime with the frozen fire that is snow and the biting winds from
the northwest that could turn your skin to frostbit blue in minites. I
hope someday that I could make a pilgrimage to Mason City and retrace
the steps from the Surf to the cornfield that became the next to last
resting place for three up and coming musicians whose lives were cut
short before their time. Best I can do right now is to celebrate their
memory by playing their music and remembering how good they were and
still are today.
Because, if you think about it the music never did die. It still lives.
