Day the Music Died

Clint Cooper - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Fifty years ago next week, the event singer Don McLean called "the day the music died" occurred.

On that day, Feb. 3, 1959, singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died when the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza B-35 in which they were passengers crashed five miles northwest of the airport they had just left in Mason City, Iowa.

Mr. McLean, in his iconic 1971 song "American Pie," recalled, "I can't remember if I cried when I read about his (Buddy Holly's) widowed bride, but something touched me deep inside the day the music died."

The three singers, along with fellow headliner Dion DiMucci of Dion & The Belmonts, had just completed playing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The next stop on their Winter Dance Party tour was in Moorhead, Minn.

Mr. Holly, according to VH-1's "Behind the Music," was frustrated with their heatless tour bus, and decided to charter a plane. The plane seated four, including pilot Roger Peterson, 21, and the cost for the trip was $36 per person.

FATAL FOUR

Buddy Holly, who chartered the plane in which he and three others were killed, needed to do some laundry before his band's next performance, and the local laundromat in Clear Lake had been closed that day, according to VH-1's "Behind the Music."

J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson had developed the flu and reportedly asked Waylon Jennings, one of Mr. Holly's band members, for his seat. When Mr. Holly learned Mr. Jennings wasn't going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Mr. Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." The exchange of words, made in jest, reportedly haunted Mr. Jennings, who became a country music star, for many years.

In addition, Ritchie Valens had never been on a plane and asked Tommy Allsup, a member of Mr. Holly's band, for the seat. Mr. Allsup said he'd flip him for it, and Mr. Valens won the coin toss. Dion DiMucci of Dion & the Belmonts, also a Winter Dance Party headliner, felt the $36 price was too expensive.

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