Bobby Vee "The Day the Music Died," three of the four headline acts in the lineup of the traveling Winter Dance Party—Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper—were killed in the crash of a V-tailed 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane, along with the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. (Dion DiMucci, the fourth headliner, had opted not to travel on the plane.) It crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, en route to the next show on the tour itinerary, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Velline, then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys (including his older brother Bill) calling themselves the Shadows volunteered
Don McLean California's Stagecoach Country Music Festival. In May 2015, McLean undertook his 20th nationwide tour of the UK and Ireland. In 1991, McLean returned to the UK top 20 with a re-issue of "American Pie". Iona College conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 2001. In February 2002, "American Pie" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, McLean was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Garth Brooks presented the award and said, "Don McLean: his work, like the man himself, is very deep and very compassionate. His pop anthem 'American Pie' is a cultural phenomenon". Two years