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
Ritchie Valens hospitalized with severely frostbitten feet, and several others, including Valens and the Big Bopper, caught the flu. The show was split into two acts, with Valens closing the first act. After Bunch was hospitalized, Carlo Mastrangelo of the Belmonts took over the drumming duties. When Dion and the Belmonts were performing, the drum seat was taken by either Valens or Buddy Holly. A surviving color photograph shows Valens at the drum kit. Black and white photos found in 2014 taken by Mary Gerber on February 2, 1959, which are on display at the Surf Ballroom show Buddy Holly playing drums