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 Buddy Holly Story The Buddy Holly Story The Buddy Holly Story is a 1978 biographical film which tells the life story of rock musician Buddy Holly. It features an Academy Award-winning musical score, adapted by Joe Renzetti and Oscar-nominated lead performance by Gary Busey. The film also stars Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Conrad Janis, William Jordan, and Maria Richwine, who played Maria Elena Holly. It was adapted by Robert Gittler from "Buddy Holly: His Life and Music", the biography of Holly by John Goldrosen, and was directed by Steve Rash. Buddy Holly, a teenager from Lubbock, Texas, emerges into the world of