The Stars Above; Buddy Holly Below

This summer, we went to St. Louis’ open-air musical theater.  It is called the MUNY and seats 11,000 people under the sky, making it America’s largest outdoor theater. 

The theater is in a park, stars are visible at night, and oak trees tower behind the stage.

The musical we went to see was The Buddy Holly Story. 

When I go to a musical, I expect great singing, great music, good acting. (I am a bit forgiving about the acting if it is a musical).  I also expect that the script will have some buffoonish moments in it.  Perhaps a little slapstick, to break the ice and get the audience laughing.

For this show, the buffoon was the receptionist at a record company office.  She would prance around waving her hands in the air, exclaiming “Te-te-te-te.  Can I help you?”

But the singing at the MUNY that night was fine.  I enjoyed listening to the Buddy Holly songs as Act One showed how Buddy built a career and became famous.

I was nice and relaxed in my seat as Act Two started…then I heard the words I was dreading: “Surf Ballroom.”

I have been to the Surf Ballroom.  It is a cheery place and only costs five bucks to tour.

You can view the painted ocean-front murals on the ballroom's walls and tall artificial palm trees on the stage.  The Surf Ballroom uses this tropical décor to be exotic, to make the audience forget that they are in land-locked Clear Lake, Iowa, surrounded by rows and rows of hybrid corn that stretch all the way to the horizon.

Clear Lake, Iowa, is where the music died.

Now I was in my seat at the MUNY feeling somber.  There would be no more buffoonery.  The actors on the stage were re-creating the concert in Iowa on the night when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Havens all died in a plane crash.

Every song that Buddy Holly sang in Act Two would be the final time in his life that he would sing that song.  The same went for the Big Bopper singing Chantilly Lace.  And for Ritchie Valens singing La Bamba.

The actors on stage joined together for a rousing version of Buddy Holly’s Rave On.  

I instinctively knew what would come next: the stage would go dark, and the audience would hear a radio announcement that a plane, four minutes after taking off from the Clear Lake Airport, had made a steep right bank and crashed into the ground, killing all the people on board.

The stage went dark.  A radio voice announced the tragic crash.  A hush fell over the audience.  

I looked up at the sky.  

Right above the stage I could see the Big Dipper.  It made me think that Buddy Holly might be up there looking down on us, looking down on 11,000 people who had come that night to listen to his music, fifty-seven years after the plane crash.  Maybe the music hadn’t really died.

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Here is a 4-and-a-half minute video of Rave On as sung in the London production of The Buddy Holly Story.  Unfortunately, the London folks forgot to put tall artificial palm trees on the stage.  The video concludes with the radio announcement of the plane crash. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwf6nVQdTY

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.