Paper Monitor
14:07 UK time, Monday, 12 April 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's quiz time, pop-pickers. First question - on what day exactly did the music die?
Paper Monitor-a-wonders. It wah, wah, wah, wah wonders...
According to most pop music aficionados, it was 3 February, 1959 - the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash in Iowa, US.
The phrase was coined in the early 1970s Don McLean hit song American Pie.
But never one to run with the herd, the Daily Express ventures otherwise, suggesting Britain should have its own memorial day - 17 April.
The occasion to be marked is the death of American rocker Eddie Cochran, who perished on that day 50 years ago.
Musicologists will know that while Cochran hailed from the US, it was in the UK he found greatest fame.
carries some interesting nuggets of trivia that may be known to those steeped in the vagaries of early 60s pop, but were new to these ears.
Cochran, who was killed when in a car crash on the A4, was travelling with fellow pop star Gene Vincent (who, of course, survived). And the policeman who was first on the scene went on to become a pop star in his own right - the Dave in 60s pop quintet Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch.
But if it looks like the Express has presented a compelling case for Britain claiming UDI on the "day the music died", the article concludes on a more equivocal note.
"American rock and roll music in England may have died on that April day, but it was reborn in Liverpool with the Beatles, in Richmond with the Rolling Stones and with a host of other British artists from Led Zeppelin to the Clash - mostly thanks to Eddie."
The 
