The Day the Music Died/American Pie

- This could, quite possibly, be the greatest

song in music history.

- There's something magical about it.

It's transcendent.

- It feels like it's always existed.

- 90-year-old people to 10-year-old kids,

everybody knows that song.

"American Pie" is an epic.

It's "War and Peace." It's the big novel.

- It's woven into the fabric of America and our culture.

I thought it was a cool idea.

I could go deliver the paper,

and one day there was this story,

three rock 'n' roll stars killed in a plane crash.

Buddy was now dead.

- This is where the music died.

The country was in an advanced

state of psychic shock.

And so, I said, "I got to have a big song about America."

One day, it all came out like a genie out of a bottle.

I knew I had the tiger by the tail.

Everything took off like a rocket.

- It went to number one so fast.

- "American Pie" blew up the world.

- I think I know the album cover

as much as I know the song.

I mean, Captain America thumb, it's iconic.

- "American Pie" was really encapsulating

the experience of a whole generation.

- Everybody can relate to that song.

"American Pie" drew you in deeply.

I'm trying to do a kaleidoscopic,

dream-like story about America.

I say "the jester stole his thorny crown."

Elvis did not have a thorny crown.

"A pink carnation," sure, I went to a lot of proms,

but I never had a pickup truck.

But I could have anything I wanted in my songs.

- It's the kind of song you dream about writing

that has meaning and has depth,

has relevance to generations, you know, ongoing.

We're in the age of TikTok.

Meanwhile, an eight-minute song is still

getting radio play all over the world.

It is a masterpiece.

- No one's ever written anything like it since.

- There's a reason it's been around for 50 years.

- This is what the power of music is.

You can see the house I grew up in

in New Rochelle, it's still there.

Being in the house with my parents,

who I loved very much,

and they were great people, but it was very restrictive.

I was white, suburban, middle-class.

We believed in God.

We believed in the church.

We believed in our government.

I was ill quite a bit.

I had asthma and I would be out of school

for weeks and weeks,

stuck in the house and looking at kids playing outside.

And I developed differently than they did.

My father's idea of what he wanted for his son

was a West Point guy, an athlete, warrior,

intellectual, crew cut, upright American boy.

And I thought, "I can't be farther apart

from this guy than I am."

- And that's when I first heard Elvis Presley.

- "Heartbreak Hotel," magic, takes your brains.

It just seemed to me that

that image was a very romantic image.

I've always been in love with romance,

you know, whether it was Robin Hood

or Superman or the Lone Ranger,

and I started thinking I could morph myself

into this somehow, maybe if I could play the guitar.

I've never talked about this in the song all these years,

but I talk about "the sacred store,"

and the sacred store is the House of Music

on Main Street in New Rochelle,

and that's where I bought my records,

and that's where I bought my first guitar.

And I started to learn. I learned three chords,

and I was off to the races, but I drove everybody crazy.

I'd play records over and over and over.

Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent,

all these great groups.

I fell in love with Buddy Holly.

He had a rollicking sound.

He was always full of joy and exuberance.

A happy country boy sound

with jingling and jangling guitars.

And his songs were great.

There was something else about Buddy Holly

that he is only 21 or 22.

He had a certain genius.

He was a serious guy, you know.

Country people were serious.

You know, they've been through a lot,

and they worked hard for their money.

I mean, you go to Lubbock, Texas

and all you see are cotton fields.

Holly Tile was the company that the father had.

Buddy would have been laying tile floors

in bathrooms or picking cotton.

- Where do you come from-- Lubbock, Texas?

- Lubbock, Texas, yes. - Right after high school,

you started playing together?

- Yes, sir, that's right. - You were a big hit right

from the start or has it been sort of a long...

- Well, we've had a few rough times, I guess you'd say,

but we've been real lucky getting it this quick.

- He had made recordings in Nashville,

which were not successful.

And then he went to Clovis, Mew Mexico,

to Norman Petty's studio

and recorded many of the same songs,

including "That'll Be The Day,"

and suddenly he had a number one record.

Norman Petty was the difference.

He knew what to do to commercialize Buddy Holly.

There was a--an alchemy.

He made magic.

And knowing it was not only all over the country,

but all around the world.

- We are very proud Iowa farmers.

My grandfather started the tradition

back in the 1920s.

This is my son, and now Andrew

and his cousin are involved in it.

- This field has been in our family for generations,

and it's really important to us

because it's our livelihood,

but also there's no other field in the countryside

that's got more history than this field.

- This is a place where one of the first

big rock 'n' roll tragedies occurred.

It's very simple,

it's in the middle of a cornfield,

it's not fancy, no flashing lights.

This is where the music died.

This is where the music died.

- In 1971, I was just beginning to explore music,

and "American Pie" was one of those songs.

I listened to it over and over again.

I had no idea that it had anything

to do about Clear Lake or the farm that we owned.

- This story in from Clear Lake, Iowa,

three of the nation's top rock 'n' roll singing stars,

Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson,

and Buddy Holly died today with their pilot

in the crash of a chartered plane.

- In 1979, when a local DJ named the Mad Hatter started

the first Buddy Holly tribute,

and then this gentleman, Ken Paquette,

did the research and said,

"Okay, this is where the plane crashed."

He put a monument out there,

and people started coming searching for the place,

so I had our welder make an extra big set of glasses,

and I mounted 'em out there,

and of course, that's kind of turned into a little bit

of a monument in itself.

When Don's song came out, it just lit up the enthusiasm

and the interest in Buddy and in that story.

Buddy and Ritchie and The Bopper,

the guys were so young.

Ritchie was only 17.

That fateful night,

they entertained a couple thousand fans.

It all ended out here.

Now this is a pilgrimage.

People from all over the world travel here.

We'll occasionally have a hayride out here,

and we'll sing "American Pie."

Everybody knows that song.

That is the song of our lives.

- "American Pie, it's woven into the fabric

of America and our culture.

- It just sort of feels like it's always existed.

It's just ubiquitous and predates

time itself or something.

- I'm told we're the world's first all-vocal country band.

- "American Pie," it's one of those songs

that I have known as long as I can remember.

- I've been singing that song my whole life.

- I remember my mother singing that song to me, just as a song

that never leaves you, it's just always there.

- By the time I remember hearing that song on the radio,

I feel like I already knew all the words.

- When our manager mentioned to us that Don was interested

in doing a special edition of the song

for its 50th anniversary and including us,

we didn't even have to think about it.

- We certainly felt a sense of responsibility,

just being handed the reins

to such an important, iconic song.

- Don put a lot of trust in us, and so, luckily,

he was thrilled with what we came up with.

He just added his vocal to the mix and it was magic.