What Really Happened the Day the Music Died

In the chorus of the song ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean, we hear the line “the day the music died” which refers to February 3, 1959, when rising music stars Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson, AKA The Big Bopper, perished when their private airplane impacted into a snowy field.

Holly, Valens and The Big Bopper were on the verge of success and were touring the upper Midwest on the Winter Dance Party tour when they made the fateful decision to skip a bus ride to their next destination and take a plane instead.