Chords for Day the Music Died: 50th Anniversary Story

_ _ _ _ [Db] _ 50 years ago next Monday Billboard magazine [Abm] spotlighted two new songs [Db] by an up-and-coming
Superstar those songs were Donna and La Bamba and both were by the musician Ritchie Valens
Tony Lopez shows us the local connection to Ritchie as he looks ahead now to the upcoming anniversary of the day the music died _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _
[Am] _ I can still remember
[C] _ How that [Em] music used to [D] make me smile
million [E] smile
[A] Peggy said _ [Eb]
hey _ [Bb] Chantilly Lake
_ [A] _ _
_ _ [Em] But February [Am] made me shiver [Gb] February 3rd
1959 Clear Lake, Iowa
This is a day that ended in tragedy for three of the biggest names in the [G] music business
[Bm] Buddy Hollis [Em] the Big Bopper
Ritchie [C] Valens the day _
[D] the _ music
_ [G] _ _
Died
_ And [N] here we are 50 years later
We _ _ met with Ritchie Valens sisters Connie and Irma and brothers Bob and Mario at Connie's home in Hollister, California
They're leaning on each other for strength for what will be a difficult anniversary.
I keep thinking I don't want to go
Iowa this is the actual poster from the last concert
from the surf February 2nd
1959 the next night Ritchie won a coin toss to get his seat on that small plane
It crashed shortly [B] after takeoff with Ritchie [A] was only 17 _ _ _
[D] Ritchie Valens hit it [A] big with that his first single [D] just weeks after [E] recording it [F] other hits [G] soon followed _
[C] _ _ [F] _ [G] Then in January of 1959 Ritchie [F] went on tour with the Winter Dance [Bb] Park
I always remember just [B] being really sad before [Em] I mean I was eight
[E] You know and we didn't really fully understand
We just knew that Ritchie was gonna go away and play some more and it would be a long time before he came home
_ Wounds are still tender.
I didn't have a picture of Ritchie in my home up until actually probably a few years after the movie
_ _ _ June 1986 cast and crew converted on this ranch [G] in Hollister to film La Bamba
[Abm] Doesn't it feel like it was yesterday _
_ _ [G] _ _ This is the first time in 22 [N] years the family has returned _
_ When I walked into it it looks like walking into a time warp
Remember in that movie when they're running up the hill _
That's that's the hill that they're running up and they sit down [B] and from up there
They overlook all the hills on the other side.
[G] That was Ritchie's Hill.
I'll be such a dreamer man
My _ _ _ dreams of pure rock and roll Ritchie, of course was played by Hollywood newcomer Lou Diamond Phillips
Connie and Irma hold fond memories of the first time they met him on set and we started crying even he started crying
Yeah, we all started crying.
We all just started crying
And that's where it began
For us.
Yeah the beginning of a long road to healing when we made La Bamba
She said there was a lot of hurting.
Oh, yeah, and we all got healed
But there was a lot of healing at the same time because we were able to
_ Open up [E] Ritchie Valens latest recording Donna is number one on the [F] CHUM hit parade _ _ _ _ _
And [Bb] he said I wrote a song for you and [C] I said, oh, okay
[F] Donna Fox is Ritchie Valens high school sweetheart.
[Bb] Yes
She is the Donna [C] and yes, he [F] did play the song for her over the phone _ _
_ _ [Gm] February 3rd, [F] where were you when you heard about the [Am] accident?
I was at school [A] lunchtime her friend Diane broke [Bb] the news
She's crying and I [Cm] went over to her and [Ab] I said what's the matter [F] and I took her hands and she said you got to
Sit down and I [Bb] said what's the matter and [Cm] she said Donna [F] Ritchie's dead.
_ I
Said no [G] Ritchie's was the first [Gm] death.
She'd experienced.
[C] It wasn't easy
I would [Bb] go to the cemetery almost every day.
This was
[Gm] The [C] birthday he missed May [F] 13th
1959 Ritchie would have been 18, [Bb] but even though he's gone
He keeps [C] her company these photos sit on [F] her nightstand at her home in Sacramento
_ And [Bb] like an old friend his music [C] comforts her [F] whenever the radios on
[Dm] And all of a sudden [C] LaBamba comes on or Donna [Gb] or come on.
Let's go
_ [A] You just [D] I look up in the sky and I just [A] say can you believe [D] this?
Got a hat like my [Ab] brother what's happening?
[C] _ _ _ They can all laugh now you see the tragedy that's defined their lives for half a century
Has blossomed into a legacy that's [G] enriched and inspired the [E] lives of others [A] the world over
_ _ _ [G] The music [D] was a seed
[Em] _ [G] That was planted
The day the [D] music died as that [G] phrase goes it was a [D] seed
[B] And in that seed was [E] Ritchie and [G] buddy and the big bopper
[D] the _ music _ _
[G] _ died
_ _ [Db] _ _ _