The Day the Music Died | Memory Lane Therapy

Remembering Buddy Holly, Richie Valens & The Big Bopper

Share this story & quiz with your residents in aged care.

It was 1959, on the 3rd of February and a fatal plane crash near Clear Lake Iowa took the lives of three up and coming rock & roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson also known as “The Big Bopper.

The group had been on a tour called “The Winter Dance Party” consisting of 24 concerts in three weeks around the midwest.

They had been traveling in old tour buses that were not that adequate and continued to break down. The time of year was very cold with freezing temperatures and the heating had failed on the tour bus.

The singers were starting to come down with colds and Buddy Holly decided to hire a charter plane to fly them to the next concert destination with the rest of the band members following in the bus.

After that evening’s concert the three men were driven to the airport to board the charter plane at 12:30 am. The pilot had 4 years of flying experience but was only 21 years old, the cause of the crash was put down to bad weather.

Do you remember that day known as “The Day The Music Died?”
Try to answer the questions about these 3 young music stars.

Buddy Holly Quiz

1. Name two Buddy Holly songs from his top 10 hits?
Peggy Sue, That’ll Be the Day, Oh Boy, Maybe Baby, Rave On, Think it Over, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Bo Diddley, True Love Ways.

2. Buddy Holly was part of a band in 1958 what were they called?
Buddy Holly & The Crickets

3. Waylon Jennings was booked on that plane flight that fateful night but tossed a coin and lost the bet and had to give up his plane seat to Ritchie Valens, True or false?
True

4. The Big Boppa had a hit song about a young American Indian couple that were in love. They had to dive into a raging river and try to swim to each other, what was the name of the song?
Running Bear

5. Ritchie Valens sang a song in part English part Spanish it was a big hit. A movie about his life was made starring Lou Diamond Phillips named after that song. What is the song and movies name?
La Bamba

6. How old were the 3 young men at the time of that plane crash?
Buddy Holly 22,
Ritchie Valens 17
and The Big Boppa 28.

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