"THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED" By John A Elliott

"THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED"

By John A Elliott  re-edited 2024.

Throughout my early childhood during the 1950’s music in our house consisted mainly of the old upright rosewood piano in our front room, and twice a week Mr Bird, my music teacher would come round to attempt to teach me the fine art of playing a piano using all my fingers, and not just playing ‘Chopsticks’ with one of my sisters, whilst squabbling who should get the lions share of the piano stool. It took quite a few lessons before my parents got the message that I wasn’t going to be a concert pianist, and they’d be best advised to just buy me a set of drums or a Kazoo, and I wouldn’t be joining Ted Heath’s Orchestra any time soon, or in fact, don’t hold your breath ‘cos little Johnny was tone deaf and couldn’t co-ordinate more than one digit on each hand at any one time. Phew wasn’t I glad when Dad cancelled my piano lessons, I hated them. I’m the same today, I type everything using just my index finger and sometimes my thumb. Here I go digressing yet again, into the nuances of my typing skills, or I should say lack of them.

The piano wasn’t really our only source of music, we had the trusted old radio, and the BBC home service. It had a length of copper wire, and a metal coat hanger for an aerial, which hung from the wooden pelmet above the window.  I always remember listening to ‘Two Way Family Favourites’, at Mid-day every Sunday whilst mum finished making our Sunday dinner my sisters and I would be sat round our dining table listening to the requests to our forces still stationed abroad. 

Now my dad’s idea of popular music was Paul Robson singing the ‘Canoe Song’ from the film ‘Sanders of the River’, or Connie Frances’s ‘Carolina Moon’ and ‘Who’s sorry now’, constantly playing on our old gramophone from those 78 rpm records. He also liked Frankie Lane. At least mom was a little more modern playing Nat King Cole, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis, Elvis, Rickey Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Cliff Richard.

I remember it was a cold wintry 4^th of February, and a Wednesday in 1959 when I came home from school to find my mom and young sisters, huddled together crying in our front parlour. I was just eight at the time and wondering what was wrong. My mom had just heard on the radio that Buddy Holly, Richie Vallens and The Big Bopper had all died in a plane crash the day before, near Clear Lake Iowa, USA. My mother loved Buddy Holly and his Music. Rock ‘n Roll and Rockabilly music was still in it’s infancy throughout the 1950’s, and the death of these up and coming popular artists was a massive blow to the genre. My mother was sad and weepy for quite a while, playing Buddy’s songs especially ‘That’ll be the Day’ and ‘Raining in my Heart’ over and over.

Today I love playing all those 1950’s and 60’s hit songs, not on 45rpm vinyl records, although I do have a retro version record and cassette player. No today it’s the modern, crackle free CD’s on my computer. I know it’s not really the same, but all those memories of yesteryear come flooding back as the music hits my aging ears. I can still picture my mother sitting in her favourite armchair, beside a glowing log fire, on a cold winters evening, knitting me yet another balaclava, and listening to her favourite music in our front parlour back on Bancroft Lane, Mansfield.

The singer/songwriter Don McLean immortalized Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and Big Bopper Richardson in the 1972 No.1 hit “American Pie,” which refers to that fateful February in 1959 as “THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED.”

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