The Big Bopper 40 radio airplay through January, 1959. With the success of "Chantilly Lace", Richardson took time off from KTRM radio and joined Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts for a "Winter Dance Party" tour starting on January 23, 1959. On the 11th night of the tour (February 2, 1959), they played at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. That night, Holly chartered an airplane from Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa, intending to fly himself and his bandmates Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup to their next tour venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. The musicians had been traveling
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