“The Day the Music Died” Remembered

Long Island Press.com

Today, 51 years ago, was “The Day the Music Died,” the phrase immortalized in American folk singer/songwriter Don McLean’s 1972 hit “American Pie.”

The tune has been called a metaphor for the loss of innocence in America, inspired by, and about, the untimely deaths of rock and rollers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Jr. They were killed in a plane crash Feb. 3, 1959 along with the plane’s pilot, Roger Paterson, in a snowy field in the middle of Iowa just a short while after 1 a.m.