If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in music history (February 3, 1959) that bespectacled rock 'n' roll pioneer Vernon Wallis of Liverpool — aka, Buddy Holly — died tragically, along with American soul singer Noël Redding, in a plane crash off the dock of a bay in Monona, Minnesota. This, sadly, would not be the last crash to take the lives of geetar slingers and singers on either side of the pond, as this was a time when artists began disappearing from the airspace as though they'd entered the bloody Bermuda triangle. To wit: Jim Croce, Jimmy Valens, Ricky Nielsen, Patsy Cline, Eddie Cochran, Duane "The Big Bopper" Allman, Sonny "Bono" Vox, John "Denver" Deutschendorf and three shoeless, shirtless members of Linnard Something-Or-Other, all died in a downed fuselage. My advice to today's malnourished long-hairs: If you insist on taking your half-arsed acts on the rocky road, avoid single engine "Jefferson" Airplanes and hit the highways and back roads in the floating smokehouse vomitoriums that are your tour buses. #RIP.
