Don McLean label for his second album, "American Pie." The album launched two number one hits in the title song and "Vincent". "American Pie"'s success made McLean an international star and piqued interest in his first album, which charted more than two years after its initial release. McLean's magnum opus, "American Pie", is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959, and developments in American youth culture in the subsequent decade. The song popularized the expression "The Day the Music Died" in reference to
The Big Bopper "Running Bear", but the recording was not released until August 1959, six months after his death. The song became a #1 hit for three weeks in January 1960. The man who launched Richardson as a recording artist was Harold "Pappy" Daily from Houston. Daily was promotion director for Mercury and Starday Records and signed Richardson to Mercury. Richardson's first single, "Beggar to a King", had a country flavor, but failed to gain any chart action. He soon cut "Chantilly Lace" as "The Big Bopper" for Pappy Daily's D label. Mercury bought the recording and released it at the end of