The great tragedy : winter dance party 1959

Description

February 3, 1959 will forever be remembered as “the day the music died.” On that icy occasion, a small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed in a frozen Iowa field, killing the three rock and roll stars on tour 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 surviving tour 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 by Eddie Cochran, Ray Campi, Benny Barnes and Hershel Almond, as well as excerpts from period radio broadcasts relaying the devastating news. Rock and roll would never be the same again - it had lost its innocence forever - but the seminal music Buddy, Ritchie and the Bopper gave us will never grow old.