Subject: Remembering Buddy, Ritchie & Big Bopper

For anyone who remembers - Today, February 3rd, marks the forty-fifth anniversay of the plane crash near Clearlake, Iowa that snuffed out the lives of three gifted young men: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. Legends all.
Big Bopper, best known for "Chantilly Lace", was a prolific songwriter, whose "White Lightnin'" is a country music standard. Ritchie Valens, a 17 year old prodigy from Pacoima, California, was recording songs for Del-Fi that would point the way for guitarists like Dick Dale to develop surf music, and bands like Los Lobos to carry on a fine tradition of Mexican rock. Charles Hardin Holley. "Buddy" Holly, along with Elvis and Chuck Berry, is clearly one of the most influential and visionary artists in all rock 'n' roll. Buddy never lived to see the huge impact his music, and particularly his songwriting would have on modern music, beginning in the mid-'60s. Songs like "Peggy Sue", "That'll Be The Day", "Rave On", "Maybe Baby", "Think It Over", "Raining In My Heart" - the list of classics literally stretches on and on. You can't hear The Beatles without hearing Buddy in the middle of it all.
To see the magnitude of the influence of these three fine young artists, one need only turn on the radio. Forty-five years later, their records are still being played daily, new bands are still doing their songs - and we still remember.