Can't Stop The Rock

A long, long time ago, fifty years to be exact, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. Come Monday, half a century will have passed since Budd,y Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash. It might be the reason for the continuing predilection of celebrity deaths happening in threes. Though I have often wondered if the Big Bopper's star doesn't shine a little brighter because of the tragedy, it was still a big enough deal for Don McClean to call it "The Day The Music Died." Was it really?
There are those who might tell you that March 19, 1982 was really the day that music died. That was the day that guitarist Randy Rhoads went to rock and roll heaven via a small plane crash. For others, it might be when they heard that Biggie Smalls had been murdered back in 1997. Perhaps it was premature, but there were some people who believed that, when Napster was shut down as a "free music site" back in 2001, music was dead.
Jimi Hendrix died and the music lived on. John Lennon was shot, and the bands played on. Kurt Cobain shot himself and they kept right on making CDs. Janis Joplin, John Bonham, Joe Strummer and most of the Ramones, and still everybody else kept right on singing. When the King passed away on his throne, the music lived on. Sometimes the music was pretty awful, but it survived, nonetheless.
Maybe what happened fifty years ago was more of a blunt trauma than a death. If you believe John Milner in "American Graffitti," rock and roll has been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died. Some might say the same thing about the passing of Shannon Hoon. Or maybe it wasn't the music that died at all. Maybe it was part of our innocence. Bye, bye Miss American Pie.