The Day The Music Died

On Febuary 3, 1959 after perfoming at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa singers Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) perished in an airplane crash along with their pilot Roger Peterson.  On this night J.P. Richardson had chartered a flight from Dwyer Flying Service for $36 to get to North Dakota ahead of the tour bus in order to see a doctor as well as to do laundry.  This night would not only turn out to change the music world, but would forever cause the Beechcraft Bonanza to be remembered as the plane that came to rest in a frozen Iowa corn field having killed Holly, Valens, and Richardson.   

 

Buddy Holly reluctantly joined the Winter Dance Party tour in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy.  At 22 years old with with a wife and baby on the way he left his home in New York and joined the others on the ill fated tour.

                              

His influence on the musicians that followed him cannot be overstated, with both the Beatles and Rolling Stones crediting Holly's music for helping to shape their sound.   

 

 

At 17 years old Richie Valens was the youngest of the four aboard the ill fated Bonanza flight.  

Valens hit records included Donna, Come on Let's Go, La Bamba, and We Belong Together.

 

J.P. Richardson, The Big Bopper was the senior of the group.  At 28 he had attended Lamar College where he studied pre law.  He later worked as a disc jockey and as a song writer.  He penned the George Jones hit "White Lightnin" as well as "Running Bear" which was recorded by Johnny Preston, both of which became number 1 hits.  The song he is most remembed for"Chantilly Lace" which Richardson recorded made it to number 6 on the Billboard charts. At the time of his death he was in the early stages of building a recording studio at his home Beaumont, Texas with plans to record 20 songs that he had written.  

 

 

Roger Peterson was the pilot whose life ended along with the stars of the Winter Dance Party.  Peterson was 22 years old at the time of his death and has had some pretty harsh criticism in print relating to this accident.  Reading the accident report was eye opening for me, and seeing Peterson's dilegence before departing has changed my impression of both him and what happened on that Febuary night.  Ultimately the crash was probably due to a new style attitude gyro that he hadn't been exposed to.  This caught up with him on the night of the accident with weather that was much worse than briefed to him.  I remember reading in an autobiography about Buddy Holly years ago that Peterson's body went thru the holes in the panel that held the instruments that he never bothered to learn how to use.  This is typical of the scorn that historians and authors have bestowed on a 22 year old kid during a time when weather reporting and briefing was lacking in comparison to todays offerings.  Unfortunately he is being held up to todays standards, instead of being judged by the standards of the day.  

 

The crash site photos, accident report, and coroner's reports can be accessed by following this link.