Friday, February 06, 2009

a long, long time ago

"The Day the Music Died" was commemorated at the Surf Ballroom on Monday night. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of rock and roll knows that the phrase refers to the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Most people also know it as a lyric from "American Pie," a song by the most famous alumnus of my high school, Don McLean.

When I saw the movie "La Bamba," some girls in the theatre were shocked to tears by the film's ending. I guess they didn't know it was a true story. Los Lobos, the group that provided Ritchie Valens' music for the soundtrack, performed at the Surf Ballroom on Monday as part of the "50 Winters Later" concert. Reading about the tribute show has me interested in watching the possible TV special, should it get made.

A Minneapolis TV station did a story about a woman who recently found her photos from the February 2, 1959 concert. The Des Moines Register has tons of material online about the 50th anniversary of the crash, including something with a Body Farm connection.

In a couple of our interviews, Dr. Bill Bass has described his participation in the exhumation of the Big Bopper. He and Jon Jefferson allowed the Register to reprint a lengthy excerpt about the case from their non-fiction book "Beyond the Body Farm."

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