The great tragedy : winter dance party 1959

Description

February 3, 1959 will forever be etched in memory as 'the day the music died'. On that icy occasion, a small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed into a frozen field in Iowa, killing the three touring rock and roll lights and their pilot. Bear Family's posthumous tribute album to the tragedy brings together some of their greatest recordings on this one-of-a-kind collection, along with key tracks from the tour's surviving participants - Dion and the Belmonts, Frankie Sardo, Waylon Jennings and even Debbie Stevens, whose cover of If You Can't Rock Me is an unreleased classic. There is also a series of tribute songs to the fallen triumvirate from Eddie Cochran, Ray Campi, Benny Barnes and Hershel Almond, as well as excerpts from period radio broadcasts that relay the devastating news. Rock and roll would never be the same again - it had forever lost its innocence - but the seminal music that Buddy, Ritchie and the Bopper gave us will never grow old.