Dear Editor,

While I enjoyed your article which highlighted the February 3, 1959 deaths of three Rock ‘n’ Roll legends. Your omission of certain facts relating to your thesis is objectionable. You write that “In 1959, claiming Feb. 3 “The Day the Music Died” likely captured the sadness in the hearts of music lovers, but it stopped there.” This statement is historically inaccurate and demonstrates a lack of knowledge about the event and music history in general.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone in 1959 who referred to the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson as “The Day the Music Died”. That title was not given to the event until 1971 when Don McLean paid tribute to these legendary rock pioneers with his hit single “American Pie”. This incidentally is a fact noted in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry regarding the plane crash.

I understand that you wanted to say that music didn’t really die in February of 1959 and I am sure that even Don McLean was aware of that in 1971 when he released his musical tribute to these 3 rockers. The fact is the title was part of a tribute to these men and is important for that reason. There are numerous expressions that we use to describe the famous, John Wayne was the Duke, Roy Rogers was the King of the Cowboys, Elvis was the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. None of these people were royalty, but who cares.

The point really is this, using this tragedy to point out that musicians still make money even after death is somehow offensive. The fact is any death takes from us something that means something to our humanity – Michael Jackson was a great dancer who people enjoyed, Randy Rhodes was a great rock guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughn was a great blues guitarist, and Duane Allman was a great rock guitarist – The reason that February 3, 1959 is called “The Day the Music Died” is because humanity lost a part of itself and we want to commemorate that — so please don’t cheapen it.

Andy Sanford

Senior – Philosophy