QUICK TAKES - Jan. 28, 2009

Starting today, thousands of people are expected to gather in Clear Lake, Iowa, to note the 50th anniversary of what songwriter Don McLean famously called “the day the music died”: the plane crash that claimed the lives of 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 28-year-old J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens.

They’ll come to the Surf Ballroom for symposiums with the musicians’ relatives, sold-out concerts and a ceremony as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame designates the building as its ninth national landmark. It’s where the trio gave their last performance on Feb. 2, 1959, before boarding the single-engine plane that crashed into a snow-covered Iowa field minutes after takeoff the next day.

“It was the locus point for that last performance by these great artists,” Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, said of the Surf Ballroom. “It warrants being fixed in time.”