The Buddy Holly Glasses

An oversized pair of black horn-rimmed glasses marks this spot, the trailhead to one of rock and roll's most hallowed grounds. Walk west along the fence line about half a mile and you reach the cornfield where, in the early hours of February third, nineteen fifty-nine, a small plane went down and killed three young stars.

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper, had just played the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake on the Winter Dance Party tour. Their pilot, Roger Peterson, died too. Don McLean later called it the day the music died. At the crash site stands a metal guitar and three records. Here, the giant glasses, a nod to Holly's signature look, point the way for pilgrims who still come from around the world.