Buddy, Ritchie and the Big Bopper

In December, 1971, Don McLean's huge song "American Pie" hit Chicago radio, and we all started talking about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. I knew their work because my parents played the local oldies station, WIND, in the car (the songs were all of ten years old then). I had not known the circumstances of their deaths, though, until my fifth-grade teacher went over "American Pie" reference by reference. WIND marked the anniversary of the plane crash each February 3, and since those days, I have done the same.

I didn't make it to Clear Lake, Iowa to visit the crash site until August, 2007. I was in Iowa to interview Percy Sledge, and it's sad to think that any one of these three men could have been on the same oldies bill as Percy Sledge, Joey Dee and Ben E. King, were it not for this accident.

The best directions to the crash site are here. As for what I saw, I traveled onto a gravel road near two fields full of crops. A wooden guitar cutout on a telephone pole showed the way to the site. Either by chance or out of respect for music fans, the half-mile path to the site was not planted over. At the site itself, a mound of earth made me wonder if it had formed as a result of the crash. Standing before the monument gave me a feeling of loss, far greater than the wistful feeling I have whenever I hear one of their songs. Some people report seeing small planes fly over the site, planes that may have left the same Mason City airport from which this flight originated. I saw no planes, but I felt the music history linked to this field.

Home     Top