Feb. 14, 2026

DON McLEAN MARKS 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF "AMERICAN PIE"

Show Notes
Transcript

DON McLEAN MARKS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF “AMERICAN PIE” AS THE SURF BALLROOM ANNOUNCES A 2027 LIFE SIZE BRONZE STATUE HONORING THE ICONIC SINGER SONGWRITER

Statue will be installed at the legendary venue where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson played their final show

CLEAR LAKE, Ia. (February 3, 2026) — Fifty five years after its release, Don McLean’s “American Pie” remains one of the most enduring anthems in American music — a sweeping, eight minute epic that captured a nation in transition and immortalized the phrase “the day the music died.” Today, as “American Pie” turns 55 (1971–2026), McLean is celebrating the milestone on tour while also helping propel a new chapter of preservation at the Surf Ballroom & Museum in Clear Lake, Iowa.

The Surf Ballroom — the National Historic Landmark where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson performed on February 2, 1959 as part of the Winter Dance Party tour — announced that a life size bronze statue honoring McLean will be erected on-site in 2027. The statue will stand as a permanent tribute to the songwriter whose work helped carry the story of that night into global cultural memory, bridging generations of listeners, historians and music fans.

The new statue is inspired from an existing life size bronze portrait created by acclaimed sculptor Zenos Frudakis (Philadelphia). Originally completed in 1989, the portrait was featured on the cover of McLean’s album ‘Classics’. Frudakis, an acclaimed portrait sculptor and lifelong friend of McLean, is known the world over for his statues of Muhammad Ali, Nina Simone, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and many more. He is creating an entirely new statue for public display at the Surf, adding a new landmark for visitors to the historic ballroom and its adjacent museum experiences.

The announcement comes on February 3 on the heels of the 2026 Winter Dance Party at the Surf — the anniversary of the 1959 plane crash that claimed the lives of Holly, Valens and Richardson — a date forever intertwined with McLean’s songwriting.

“The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation is thrilled that one of our most iconic ambassadors is being honored with a statue at The Surf Ballroom, the site of Buddy Holly’s final performance,” said Rick French, chairman of The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation and a national trustee of the famed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “While American Pie was famously inspired by the plane crash that claimed the lives of Buddy, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson on February 3, 1959 , it has stood for more than half a century as an anthem to the cultural shifts of our country and is as relevant today as it has ever been.”

The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation (TBHEF) works to extend musical education — including songwriting, production, arranging, orchestration and performance — to new generations regardless of income or learning levels. The Foundation also supports emerging artists through mentoring and songwriting retreats, and its Ambassadors receive a replica of Buddy Holly’s own Gibson J 45 to encourage new music in his memory.

“To this day Don remains one of Maria Elena Holly’s closest friends and she was overjoyed to learn a statue is being cast in his honor,” added Peter Bradley, Jr., vice chairman of The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation, who is working closely with McLean, his management team and Jeff Nichols at the Surf Ballroom to plan a blockbuster unveiling of the statue upon completion.

First opened in 1933 (and rebuilt in 1948 after a fire), the Surf Ballroom continues to host concerts and special events year round and welcomes visitors to explore the site’s museum offerings. In recent years, the Surf expanded its educational mission with new immersive experiences honoring the artists and cultural moments that shaped early rock ’n’ roll — ensuring that the ‘Winter Dance Party’ story is preserved not only as history, but as a living, visitable place.

DON McLEAN 2026 TOUR DATES (SUBJECT TO CHANGE):
Fri, Feb 06 — Lobero Theatre — Santa Barbara, Calif.
Sat, Feb 07 — Saban Theatre — Beverly Hills, Calif.
Fri, Mar 20 — Seminole Casino Hotel Immokalee — Immokalee, Fla.
Sat, Mar 21 — Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts — Melbourne, Fla.
Sun, Mar 22 — Savannah Center — The Villages, Fla.
Mon, Mar 23 — Nancy and David Bilheimer Capitol Theatre — Clearwater, Fla.
Sat, May 16 — Honeywell Center — Wabash, Ind.
Fri, May 22 — Edmond Town Hall — Newton, Ct.
Thu, May 28 — Riviera Theatre — North Tonawanda, N.Y.
Fri, May 29 — Caesars Circus Maximus Theater — Atlantic City, N.J.
Sat, Jun 06 — Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino — Las Vegas, Nev.
Sat, Aug 01 — Murphy Theatre — Wilmington, Ohio
Sat, Aug 22 — Indiana State Fairgrounds & Event Center — Indianapolis, Ind.

For tickets and the latest updates, visit DonMcLean.com.

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WEBVTT

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Hi, you love, don too censure W for see wow

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for you young? I was how fucked to the day

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didn't you use it? I started singing bye bye this

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American Pie drol Machem.

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This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe

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Man W four C Y Radio, And I'm here with

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our next guest who uh man, I'm very excited about

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because we're so brain and anniversary. I can't believe it

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like mixed me feel but uh here we have don McLean.

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How are you?

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I'm very well, thank you, happy to be here. Man.

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I can't believe it's been fifty five years of American Pie.

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I can't either. It's like, you know, my life is

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groundhog Day. I'm just.

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Sometimes that's not a bad thing, right.

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No, it isn't so as long as you own the

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property and you get paid, all right. It's a bad

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thing if you don't own it and everybody talks about

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it and somebody else owns it.

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There you go.

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So let me just start off with for those that

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don't know what led you to this song, For those

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that don't know the story.

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Well, first of all, for those that don't know the story,

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they need to see the movie The Day the Music

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Died the story of Don McLean's American Pie. And it's

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a documentary movie. It's more than an hour devoted entirely

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to this one soul and how I wrote it. You

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can see it on Amazon, you can see it on

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Paramount Plus, and if you like it a whole lot,

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you can buy it on Amazon. And I think it's

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worth having in your collection because it's very detailed. And

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in this documentary I go into the meaning of the

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lyrics as best I can, because there were things I

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just threw in. There was things that meant two things

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at once. There were all sorts of things. But I

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was trying to make get the feeling of forward movement

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in the song through a through a decade, and I succeeded,

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I think, in doing that. So you know what led

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me to it was that by the time I was

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singing with Pete Seeger on the Hudson in nineteen sixty eight,

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sixty nine, seventy in there, I had already decided that

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I wanted to do a big song about America, and

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so that's what led me to it.

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I love it, and you know, he has definitely said

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the test of time. For sure, people even.

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Today all you'd.

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Have to do is mention that song and they know it.

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There aren't many songs in history that hold that stature.

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I'm very proud of it, and I'm very happy that

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I was able to connect myself with Buddy Holly and

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Richie Allen's and the Big Bopper. I'm very happy that

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I was able to capture the sadness that I felt

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as a thirteen year old reading about that event in

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the newspaper. It stayed with me for years and years.

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So I just want to say that I really didn't

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know if I was ever going to do anything with it.

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You know, I just suddenly I did. So that's what happened.

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Well, and that's usually how it happens, isn't it. Like

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usually the things that happen in our life or especially

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in music, they just they just happen.

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You don't really like folks, Well.

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You know, most professional songwriters they write songs about, you know,

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one thing or another, and they do it on a

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pretty much daily basis. I won't write anything for months

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and then I'll come out with something. So I'm not

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like them. I'm not a professional in a sense. I'm

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sort of a dreamer and I make things up and

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I have little films in my head. I don't really

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read music. I do not really read music. I do

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not read music, and I cannot write it down, so

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it's all in my head.

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I love that because to me, that makes you a

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true artist. Like I think a lot of times when

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it comes to creating an kind art, whether it's writing

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a song, writing a book, thing like that, you have

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to be kind of in the vibe and it has

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to kind of come to you. Like I'm a published author.

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Why my books it took me six months. It took

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me six months to write the first half because I

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wrote the first half in like one day and then

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took six months off and then finished.

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Because you weren't ready to finish.

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It exactly exactly.

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You can't just if anybody the people that worked on deadlines,

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with the people that wrote those horrible songs for Elvis

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in his movies, that's the kind of people they are. Yeah,

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you know, you don't write something really good unless you

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really feel it and you grab that feeling. But you know,

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I've man, I don't know how I've managed to do it.

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I've still managed to make well over twenty studio albums,

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and there are live albums, and there are compilations with

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new stuff on there, and they're maybe two hundred songs

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I've written, and not the usual enormous amount. I mean,

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but every song matters to me, and I was very

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careful about the way I use words and the songs

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that I sing, because that's what I'm going to be

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remembered for, and it matters. You know, you can't be

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in a hurry just to do something you know that's

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no good.

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Oh absolutely, And you know the thing is too is

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it's got to come naturally, you know, so you can't

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really force it to me. And listening to what you're

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just saying, the first thing popped in my head was

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quality over quantity.

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You know, Well, there are people out there there, there

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are musicians who I will not name, who are very successful,

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who are able to spew out stuff and just always

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coming with a new album and it really it's it's

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it's not bad, it's not good. It's just what they

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do and they have a facility. But I know, I

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get the sense there's no not really a brain attached

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to it anymore. It's just, you know, I'll knock out

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something that I think people will like, and yeah, that

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kind of thing, and they do, they're very successful. I'm

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not going to mention who I'm talking about, but there

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are a lot of there are quite a few very

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successful substandard songwriters well.

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And I find it also comes with the times, because

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from the times of when you did American Pie, Okay,

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I tend to think, my opinion is there was a

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lot more to being a songwriter or a musician. It's

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like today they kind of use formulas, they do enough

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just to get by. I kind of look at as

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you're the type of songwriter that relates to somebody that's

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in school that strives always to get a's, and those

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other people you're talking about, they're happy to just pass

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the class.

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Well, you know when the old days in the seventies,

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now they really are the old days, right. If you

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walked into the studio, there were a lot of very

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good musicians there who had been on a lot of

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sessions and heard a lot of things, and so you're

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going to be presenting this music for them to play,

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and you don't want them rolling their eyes. Yeah, you

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know what I mean. Totally, it was a challenge, you know,

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to go in the studio and have this stuff. Most

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all the time I was a big because I was loaded,

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I had I had my dozen or fourteen songs ready,

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and they were all really good and different, and so

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the musicians would look forward to playing on my records

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because there was a you know, real music, and it

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was different.

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I love it.

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And different is a good key word there, because I

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think that's very, very important that it be different and unique.

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I think that's another comparison I find today compared to

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music in the seventies sixties.

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You know, it's like.

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Everything was kind of different than now. You find there's

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so many artists and so many music artists that a

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lot of them aren't doing the same thing. There's nothing unique.

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Well, I don't hear anything I can whistle.

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That's a good that's a good gauge right there.

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Yeah. If I can't whistle it, it it ain't music.

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Right that what a great gauge. I'd love that.

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And I don't hear anything. I really don't. I don't

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even know how kids remember this stuff because I can't

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whistle it. I could never sing it. But yet they

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seem to know what they're doing and they are loving

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it and it's their world and they're entitled to it.

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Well, you know what, I'm world right, And you know

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what I've found is by interviewing bands of today is

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that they have to kind from them, They have to

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appeal to the attention span of today, which people have

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the attention span of half of a goldfish.

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You know. Well, that's what's wrong all across the board,

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and that's the failure of get me started. Primarily education,

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which has been watered down into socializing social issues rather

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than learning your you know, parts of speech and math

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and memorizing things. Oh my god, the mind is not

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being asked to do very much, no, you know. I

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mean we had to have spend forever learning multiplication tables

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and all this stuff. No, they don't know that now,

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you know, just look at their phone.

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Listen.

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I can outdo math in my head of anybody holding

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a calculator, as most of us from that time in life,

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you know. And it's like I remember, even my kids,

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forget my grandkids, even my kids, like I used to upset,

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They're like, Dad, we need a calculator for school. I'm like,

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you're not allowed to have a calculator in school.

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Use your brain. No, the teacher said, it's required for.

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The Like well, I think the teachers wanted an easier job.

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Teaching was a very hard job in the old days. Yeah,

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they worked from the day that a minute they got

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into the morning until three in the afternoon. They were

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sweating and working and putting that chop dust all over

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them and writing stuff all over the board and you know,

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and all that and grading papers at night. Blah blah blah. Yeah.

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I don't know what's going on now, but I do

192
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know that we are dead last in about everything. So yeah,

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ever's going on, it's not working.

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And it's terrible that they take art out of schools too,

195
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because I think art is a huge part of education.

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How could you not, like I kind of imagine not

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growing up with art, you know, whatever form it was

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in school.

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I think, if I may say this, I think fizz

200
00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:47.440
ed is the most important thing they've let go, because

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the condition of young people is drastic, and it's bad.

202
00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:54.879
They have to be You've got to start climbing that

203
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:56.960
rope to the top of the you know, the gym

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and doing a hundred pushups and they better started soon

205
00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:05.399
and dig into what they're eating. And oh lord, it's

206
00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:08.639
just gotten away from us so badly. And that's why

207
00:13:09.799 --> 00:13:14.000
so many of our young people now are coming down

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00:13:14.039 --> 00:13:17.159
with the illnesses that were reserved for older folks. But

209
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.279
you know, I was thinking about something, you know, going

210
00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:26.039
back just one hundred and forty years to the Civil War, right,

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00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:30.279
we put into the Civil War on both sides because

212
00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:34.559
it was both of us North and South, millions of

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00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:39.200
young men who were the best condition that a person

214
00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:44.559
could be in. And kill them all, and think of

215
00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:49.960
all the descendants who would be you know, prime physical

216
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.879
specimens coming from that group of people. Just in the

217
00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:57.639
Civil War. Forget about Korea and Vietnam and all the rest,

218
00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:01.200
where we killed so many more of these a very

219
00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:05.960
able body, physically able and physically perfect people, leaving behind

220
00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:11.279
the ones who were defected. It's like these, especially these

221
00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:16.000
wars like Vietnam and all this stuff, like you know,

222
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:21.320
Iran and Iraq which was a disaster, and all these others,

223
00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:28.840
we've purposely gone in and removed the best physical specimens

224
00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:32.399
from the gene pool. Yeah, for no reason. You know,

225
00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:34.639
it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And you'll never

226
00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:38.639
get that back because that has evolved over hundreds of years,

227
00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:41.919
you know, to get a person like that that's gone.

228
00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:44.519
Now I love that you brought that up because I

229
00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:46.679
never even thought of that the way you put that,

230
00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:49.840
and you're saying, and I'm going, oh my god, that

231
00:14:49.919 --> 00:14:51.039
makes so much sense.

232
00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:59.000
The people are not And then the idea, you know,

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00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:06.480
of having a no fail kind of an environment in school,

234
00:15:06.879 --> 00:15:08.799
You got to fail, you know, you got to have

235
00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:11.679
that horrible feeling of being, you know, failing the test,

236
00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:14.159
and if it hurts enough, you make sure you don't

237
00:15:14.159 --> 00:15:16.200
have that feeling again, you know, and you work a

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00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:16.840
little harder.

239
00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.480
Well, I think I'm also a motivational speaker, and I

240
00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:24.039
believe you have to fail in order to succeed, and

241
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you know, you learn from those failures. And also if

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you're not failing, sometimes you're not really trying. Because sometimes

243
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when you try very hard, you fail, and that's how

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you get to where you need to be. You take

245
00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:44.279
somebody like Edison. Let you have like over one hundred

246
00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:50.039
failed inventions before he vented the light bulb. Today we

247
00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:51.000
wouldn't have light.

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Well, I understand this. You know. It's very hard, I

249
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know for me to break into the show business, and

250
00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:06.559
I never had any I never had any grand plans

251
00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:10.240
for myself. I just wanted to make a living. And

252
00:16:10.360 --> 00:16:13.360
I thought, if I was really good, you know, I

253
00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:17.960
as a singer, songwriter, performer, guitar player, banjo pick or whatever,

254
00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:23.799
that I could you know, learn to perform and you know,

255
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:27.559
make a few dollars in nightclubs and have a little

256
00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:34.320
house maybe, And you know, so that was my goal.

257
00:16:34.360 --> 00:16:36.840
And the funny thing is that so many good things

258
00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:42.919
happened to me and I ended up becoming really very wealthy.

259
00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:45.960
But there are a lot of reasons why that happened.

260
00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.879
It wasn't accidental, and it wasn't automatic. It was because

261
00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:52.720
of me and the way I did things. But many

262
00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:57.519
many of the guys that I knew in the sixties,

263
00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:03.279
who were real popular in the folk world, if not

264
00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:09.480
in the rock and roll world, ended up homeless or destitute.

265
00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:15.000
Yeah, well, so what was it? What was it?

266
00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:17.039
Do you remember what that moment, I'm sure you do,

267
00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:20.839
that moment in time where you caught the bug for music.

268
00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:26.079
Well, I always liked singing for people, and I always

269
00:17:26.119 --> 00:17:31.279
had I always had a beneficial effect on people when

270
00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:35.480
I would sing a song in school or wherever. And

271
00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:38.839
I think I just remember it now, and again my

272
00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:43.000
memory is faulty because you know, there are lots of

273
00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:46.319
other things that happened, but what sticks out in my

274
00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:55.200
mind is an age about eleven in nineteen fifty six,

275
00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:59.640
is when Elvis really broke through, seeing him on the

276
00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:04.200
front of TV Guide with you know, holding the guitar

277
00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:08.240
up and he had a red windbreaker and black pants

278
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:13.359
and he had this Martin guitar. It was a a

279
00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:19.519
D eighteen. And I looked at that and I said,

280
00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:23.279
you know, if I could learn to play that thing,

281
00:18:24.359 --> 00:18:27.319
you know, I could do that, you know nice. And

282
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:32.920
it was a very reasonable goal, you know, you know,

283
00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.160
it wasn't like you had to be a genius technology

284
00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:40.559
person or anything, just learn. So but here's the funny thing.

285
00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:44.920
So many interesting things happened to me. I happened to

286
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.920
have in my neighborhood a guy who was the son

287
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:56.480
of the announcer who was on the Dorsey program. So

288
00:18:56.599 --> 00:18:59.920
the announcer of the Dorsey program Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey,

289
00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:03.400
and they were the first ones to put Elvis on television.

290
00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:09.200
So this guy, the father of this friend of mine,

291
00:19:09.559 --> 00:19:14.799
had a sixteen millimeter film of Elvis singing you know,

292
00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:17.960
flip Flop fly or whatever the song was on Dorsey

293
00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:22.559
and he would put it down a big screen and

294
00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:26.319
he would run it and you could see like you

295
00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:30.920
could never ever see back in nineteen fifty six, a

296
00:19:31.079 --> 00:19:36.640
big screen version of this cat doing this thing. So

297
00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:42.480
my friend was also a musician, and I'll tell you

298
00:19:42.519 --> 00:19:44.440
a couple of things. So he said to me one day,

299
00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:48.680
because I was already now, I was completely in you know,

300
00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:50.440
I knew if I could learn to play this thing.

301
00:19:50.920 --> 00:19:53.559
I had it on my mind just a little bit.

302
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:57.559
This is where I was headed, especially after seeing that

303
00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:04.000
huge film. So the son of the same man, his

304
00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:08.720
name was Brad. He said, I've got a guitar and

305
00:20:08.799 --> 00:20:14.799
I can play. And I said, no, you don't. I

306
00:20:14.839 --> 00:20:19.039
don't believe you. We were like twelve, you know. He said, well,

307
00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:21.279
come on over to my basement and I'll show you.

308
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:26.039
It's like right out of you know, leave it to Beaver,

309
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:29.200
which is like life.

310
00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:30.599
Was really right.

311
00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:33.799
So we go in his basement and there's this harmony

312
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:38.559
guitar and he said, here's a chord. Play this E chord.

313
00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:42.079
He said, now play this chord A and this is

314
00:20:42.119 --> 00:20:45.160
a tough one. You use all your fingers B seventh.

315
00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:48.440
So I learned the first three chords on the guitar

316
00:20:49.519 --> 00:20:54.400
and I walked out of there knowing how to do that. Well,

317
00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:00.960
here's the funny thing. Recently, I've reconnected with him. His

318
00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:04.759
name is Brad and I've asked him a lot of

319
00:21:04.839 --> 00:21:08.319
questions about those days and his life and everything. This

320
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.799
is forty fifty years later. And he said he was

321
00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:16.440
in the audience when Elvis came on stage at the

322
00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:20.079
Dorsey show and he said, you don't know this, but

323
00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:24.799
everyone started to laugh. They thought Elvis was a comedian.

324
00:21:28.359 --> 00:21:32.440
What do you think about that? Wow, Compared to everything

325
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:36.680
else in the world, this cat doing what he was

326
00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:38.559
doing was hilarious.

327
00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:40.839
Wow.

328
00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:45.240
And the audience laughed and he said they thought he

329
00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:46.200
was a comedian.

330
00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:51.160
That's wild. I never even heard that story about it.

331
00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:52.599
Well, you won't ever hear about it.

332
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.680
Because right, but he was there.

333
00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:02.759
Wow, And think about it, think about the comic aspect

334
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:10.079
to Mick Jagger. Yeah, these people are hilariously funny, you know,

335
00:22:10.839 --> 00:22:14.480
Little Richard, you know, Chuck Berry. They're doing their thing.

336
00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:17.319
It's when they make the records and you start to

337
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:20.400
live with the music they're making that it becomes a

338
00:22:20.519 --> 00:22:26.559
serious thing and then life changing. Right, you know, But

339
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:29.599
if you just look at these people. I mean, I

340
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:35.440
remember meeting working with the Jordanaires. I made two albums

341
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:38.119
with them. I took them to England for a TV special.

342
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:41.119
I took them to Carnegie Hall three or four times.

343
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:45.759
I had hit records with them, crying since I don't

344
00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:49.319
have you castles in the air. These were hit records.

345
00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:53.880
And Ray Walker, who sang in the group, he sang bass.

346
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:57.400
He said, the first time I met Little Richard, his

347
00:22:57.559 --> 00:23:03.920
face was painted purple. Now just stand back, and they

348
00:23:03.920 --> 00:23:08.240
didn't think about that for a second. A cat with

349
00:23:08.279 --> 00:23:15.440
a purple face who was singing tooty fruity, that's not funny.

350
00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:18.240
I don't know what it is that is. I'm like,

351
00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:21.200
think about it my head. I'm like, that's hilarious.

352
00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:24.400
But that's how far out these guys were, I mean,

353
00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:26.799
and those were the big ones. You know, you're not

354
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:30.920
talking about screaming Jay Hawkins and some of these other

355
00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:40.160
guys that were, you know, completely crazy. So it's always

356
00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:44.160
been a crazy business, the music business, rock and roll

357
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:49.200
side of it especially, but wonderful.

358
00:23:49.960 --> 00:23:53.880
So now is it crazy to you that in twenty

359
00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:00.400
twenty seven, Surf Ballroom is creating this life size ron

360
00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:05.440
statue honoring you, does that blow your mind or what it?

361
00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:09.599
Truly? It really does? You know, I'm really it's like

362
00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:17.400
I put myself in my own movie. I was a dreamer.

363
00:24:18.039 --> 00:24:22.039
Marilyn Monroe said a funny thing she said talking about

364
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:24.680
all the showgirls that she started out with. You know,

365
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:29.920
she said, we all dream, but I dreamed the hardest.

366
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:33.319
And that's a very Marilyn remark, you know, but that's

367
00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:37.480
very true. I almost felt like I dreamed my way

368
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:39.000
into having it happen.

369
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.599
My mind is important, for sure.

370
00:24:42.799 --> 00:24:47.240
Something going on there because I knew exactly who I was,

371
00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:49.640
I knew exactly how I wanted to be. I knew

372
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:52.759
exactly where I wanted to go, and I wasn't gonna

373
00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:56.039
stay stuck in folk music. I wasn't gonna stay stuck

374
00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:58.400
in anywhere. I was going to make my own music

375
00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:01.799
and do my own thing, especially on these records that

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00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:06.599
I made. I knew that was the biggest opportunity of

377
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:11.839
all to really fully explore the music that I was

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00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:16.279
hearing in my head, not just with my limited skills

379
00:25:16.319 --> 00:25:21.160
as a guitarist or a five string manajo player. So

380
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:25.960
I had my plan and I enacted it, and then

381
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:34.400
it worked, and it all happened, and you know, the

382
00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:39.960
Surf Ballroom. They have contacted me a number of times

383
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:42.799
and through the years and said, you know, we want

384
00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:45.400
to honor you somehow because of your song and what

385
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:50.200
it meant to the legend of Buddy Holly that everyone

386
00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:54.200
now calls February third, the day the music died. And

387
00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:57.720
you know your music and you did this and we

388
00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:01.480
want to honor you and can we do And I said, well,

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I don't know. And so then I was talking with

390
00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:08.519
my friend Zenos for Dakas, who is the sculptor who

391
00:26:08.599 --> 00:26:14.240
is the premier sculptor really in the country, and he

392
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:19.519
just finished a ten foot sculpture of Muhammad Ali in Lewiston, Maine,

393
00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:23.680
which you can you would see if you google Ali.

394
00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:31.400
He's a thousand sculptures up all over the world. And

395
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he said, I will do it for nothing if you

396
00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:36.920

DON McLEAN MARKS 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF "AMERICAN PIE"

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