A long, long time ago . . .
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

So said Don McLean in his iconic 1971 song "American Pie," about the death in a light-plane crash of three of my generation's childhood heroes: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, who was known as The Big Bopper.

Next Tuesday, Feb. 3, it is 50 years since "the day the music died."