Chicano rock The Sir Douglas Quintet, Thee Midniters, Los Lobos, Malo, War, Tierra, and El Chicano all have made music that is heavily based on 1950s R&B, even when general trends moved away from the original sound of rock as time went by. Chicano rock 'n' roll star Ritchie Valens, was a Mexican-American singer and songwriter influential in the Chicano rock movement. He recorded numerous hits during his short career, most notably the 1958 hit "La Bamba." Valens died at age 17 in a plane crash with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper on February 3, 1959. The tragedy was
American Pie (Don McLean album) McLean’s second album; his first, "Tapestry", having been released to only moderate commercial success and acclaim in 1970. McLean was a protégé of Pete Seeger, having played with him in the 1960s. The album "American Pie" was intended as a unified work, as McLean has said that he was influenced by the Beatles' "Sgt Pepper" album and envisioned "American Pie" to be a similar album. Believing that an artist's work should stand by itself, McLean generally did not offer explanations for his work's themes or meaning, though he did describe the title song as involving "a sense of loss". McLean