Getting back to 1969 at Newport, though, what Phil Everly told him was that Holly took the plane because he had to do his laundry. This is before we started thinking of the date that plane went down - Feb. 3, 1959 - as 'the day the music died.'ĭon't miss out! Your guide to all the biggest concerts playing metro Phoenix in JulyĪt that point, McLean hadn't written those words in 'American Pie,' the nearly nine-minute epic whose 50th anniversary he's celebrating on a tour that makes its way to the Orpheum Theatre on July 9. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson were killed in a plane crash after playing the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, as part of the Winter Dance Party Tour. Lucky's and its joker sign became Arizona icons Buddy Holly and the day the music diedĮverly shared what he had come to understand of the events that happened 10 years earlier, when Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. 'I said, 'I know that you knew Buddy Holly.' And like a kid - I was just a kid - I said, 'What happened? Can you tell me what happened?' I wanted to know more than just, 'He got on the plane.'' In 1969, an aspiring singer-songwriter landed a spot in the annual Newport Folk Festival, where a conversation with rock 'n' roll legends the Everly Brothers changed his life in ways he never could've dreamed.Īs Don McLean recalls, 'The Everlys were there. And they had always been my favorite group. View Gallery: Don McLean and 'American Pie' through the years: Photos

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