GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Fifteen years ago this month, Grand Rapids residents rallied for a citywide lip sync to a live recording of Don McLean’s 1972 song “American Pie.”
It was a grassroots effort to show off the area, spearheaded by local event organizer Rob Bliss at the time, in response to Newsweek calling Grand Rapids a “dying city.”
The video, filmed on May 22, 2011, was hailed as “the greatest music video ever made” by the late Roger Ebert, a movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. It amassed more than 5 million YouTube views and vast international coverage…