On 3rd Feb 1959 (sixty years ago today) Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash shortly after takeoff from Clear Lake, Iowa.
Read about it HERE.
Big Bopper – Chantilly Lace: https://youtu.be/lGXFVOc5I8Q
Buddy Holly – That’ll Be The Day: https://youtu.be/eq9FCBatl3A
Ritchie Valens – Come On Let’s Go: https://youtu.be/XLrnU1K2Wso
HT: Hambone
What dirt did they have on the clintons?
My Sophomore in HS. English. All most) the girls cam in crying! after class I asked Molly why? Richie is dad!
the next 9 weeks his “B” side of La Bamba; “Donna” was #1 on the charts. Had it til 1 of my kids fed it to one of our dogs Record was there but with giant holes! Wife was very sorry! I think that $0.29 record would be worth $thousanda today!
Richie was not as big as Elvis or pat in Cal but he was BIG!
It must have involved a polar vortex. Maybe Al Gore and Michael Moore should study up on that and see about losing a few pounds of ugly fat above the neck.
I played there a couple of times and saw the graffiti backstage. Most old ballrooms are gone, but the Surf lives on because of the legend.
…. & then we got that insipid, vastly overplayed song
my birthday….thanx so much…….
I read something about this recently that had Marty Robbins picture in the beginning. Didn’t he miss the plane or gave up his seat?…somebody more famous then I gave up his seat….OK read the article and it was either Dion or Waylon Jennings….Waylon must look like Marty Robbins to some folks….He probably wrote ‘Ramblin’ man’ to spook the demons or he just liked the ginches out when he was Rambiin”…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–XdhfJKjEk
What a shame. I would have enjoyed hearing how their music continued to develop.
I was only 9 years old, and living overseas (Argentina), so the event itself didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time. It was only later when my musical tastes broadened that I saw that the crash had had a very real tragic effect on popular music.
I’ve read about the plane crash. The pilot took off at 1:00 a.m. in a snow storm, visibility nil, in a Bonanza with a new attitude instrument he hadn’t flown with before. It doesn’t get more “pilot error” than that. Too bad.
Waylon.
Coincidentally I still look a bit like Waylon Jennings and Jesse Coulter still won’t call…neither will Emmy Lou Harris….restraining orders are a bitch…..
Happy Birthday, chuckie!!
I watched the movie La Bamba. Very emotional.
I wonder how they’ll commemorate “The Day America Died”?
Buddy Holly was THE King of Rock and Roll. Period there is no other. He wrote it, he sang it, he played it, he died doing it.
Elvis was NOT the King…by any means.
@ Uncle Al – thanks for the GREAT anecdote.
The Big Bopper was the consummate entertainer. It is said that he started the rockabilly style of music. In the song “American Pie” he was the jester mentioned. My mom said he was full of life and friendly to every person he met. He attended the junior high school my mom and I went to and transferred from South Park High School (where Tex Ritter also graduated from) to another high school, Beaumont High, across town for his last couple of years. That was the school where Johnny and Edgar Winter graduated from. The Big Bopper was a good song writer and wrote the songs “Running Bear” and “White Lighting”, which George Jones made famous. George Jones knew the Big Bopper well as Beaumont is where he honed his craft while playing on the streets and in the local honkie-tonks. Harry James also grew up in Beaumont and learned to play the trumpet from his music teacher father. He and his wife, Betty Grable, would visit Beaumont often to see Harry’s parents. More recently, Tracy Byrd, Mark Chesnutt and Clay Walker grew up there. Beaumont, Texas used to be a great place to live and raise a family back in those days but not so much today. It has gained the reputation of being somewhat like a miniature South Chicago. What a shame.
Lou Diamond Phillips completely ruined anything I might have considered positive about RV. Los Lobos is still cool though.
“The musicians packed up their instruments and finalized the flight arrangements. Holly’s bass player, Waylon Jennings, was scheduled to fly on the plane but gave his seat to the Big Bopper, who was suffering from a cold. Holly’s guitarist Tommy Allsup agreed to flip a coin with Richie Valens for the remaining seat.”