Crime of the Century: The Day The Music Died

Another promo film, another reveal of a story from Crime of the Century: Classic Rock and True Crime. This time, the focus is on Joe Meek, Buddy Holly, and The Day The Music Died. This year marks the 65th anniversary of that tragic day when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Iowa en route to Fargo, North Dakota. With my book being a true crime and rock and roll book, what better day to open up preorders than The Day The Music Died? You can preorder a copy directly through me and get an autographed copy, which will ship on 28 March.

For many classic rock fans, their main interest is probably the 60s, 70s, or 80s, but we wouldn’t have the rock music of that time period without the rock music of the 50s and I think it’s important to know your history. Despite Buddy Holly not making it to the 60s, it’s so clear to see how his influence in rock and roll lived on. The Beatles saw him on TV on Sunday Night at the London Palladium (I wish the footage survived! That’s rock and roll history!), Bob Dylan saw him live in Duluth and made eye contact with him days before his death, Mick Jagger saw him live in London, Brian May was in tears when he heard about Buddy Holly’s death, Graham Nash said that The Hollies’ name was a tribute to Buddy Holly, and Hank Marvin felt like it was cool to be a rock star with glasses. Artists like The Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Hollies, Blind Faith, Phil Ochs, Waylon Jennings Linda Ronstadt, Rush, Blondie, Stevie Nicks, Showaddywaddy, and many others covered his songs. Don MacLean’s “American Pie” was about The Day The Music Died. Hank Hill sang a pastiche of “Peggy Sue” on King of the Hill.

Of course, our other main character in this story, Joe Meek was obsessed with Buddy Holly. In short it all began with his fortune teller friend who drew tarot cards and predicted that Buddy Holly would die on 3 February and it turned out that his prediction was true. Afterwards, he became even more obsessed with Buddy Holly and felt this connection to him. Joe Meek killed his landlady before turning the gun on himself on 3 February 1967, months before England decriminalised homosexuality and two years before man made it to the moon.

Joe Meek for better or worse was Britain’s Phil Spector. He was a pioneering music producer and a visionary obsessed with space. He was best known for composing and producing “Telstar” by The Tornadoes, the first British rock and roll chart topper in the United States. However, it was not the first chart topper by a British musician – Vera Lynn (of “We’ll Meet Again” fame – that was basically the theme song of WWII) topped the charts in 1952 with “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” – also the first time a foreigner topped the charts in the US, Laurie London topped the charts in 1958 with a version of “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”, and Acker Bilk topped the charts in May 1962 with “Stranger on the Shore”.

However, he had struggled with his mental health and that was exacerbated by the institutionalised homophobia of the time. In the early 60s, he was arrested for being gay and it scarred him and he feared being blackmailed for the rest of his life. I wonder if things would have turned out differently for him had he lived in a more accepting time.

The story is told in this video (also available on YouTube for those who don’t have Instagram). I did take a few creative liberties with the outfit (and the fact that I’m a woman and the fortune teller was a man), but I just wanted to wear something that looked witchy and my prized Gunne Sax dress and Palestinian wedding cape were perfect for that! That footage of Joe Meek the Telstar Man’s plaque was taken by me when I was walking along the Holloway Road with my friend Eliza.

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