However, he was alarmed when Peterson did not make the expected radio contact five minutes later. The plane took off at 12:55 am in difficult and snowy conditions, and the event was witnessed by Dwyer. Once the groups had finished playing their Clear Lake show, Anderson drove Holly, Valens, and Richardson to Mason City Municipal Airport. 21-year old Roger Peterson was chosen as the pilot, and he flew a 1947 single-engine V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza which allowed for three passengers and the pilot. The Day the Music Died – WNC Music Academy The Crash That Shocked AmericaĪnderson contacted the owner of Dwyer Flying Service, Hubert Jerry Dwyer, and asked for a plane to fly to Hector Airport in Fargo. DiMucci even said that he had ‘won’ the toss only to pull out of the flight because he couldn’t justify paying $36, the equivalent of the monthly rent his parents paid on their apartment when he was growing up, on an indulgence. He said that Valens had fallen ill and DiMucci flipped a coin for the seat. However, Dion DiMucci claimed that Holly offered him the seat. Valens won and said it was the first time he had ever won anything in his life. Tommy Allsup and Ritchie Valens tossed a coin to decide who would get the last seat. He replied: “Well, I hope your ‘ol plane crashes.” Jennings agreed, and when Holly discovered his new band mate wasn’t flying with him, he quipped: “Well, I hope your ‘ol bus freezes up.” Jennings played along with the joke with a response that haunted him until the end of his days. Richardson felt too ill to embark on yet another hellacious bus journey and asked Waylon Jennings for his seat. Richardson aka The Big Bopper – Narrow EscapesĪlthough Holly was guaranteed a seat on the plane, there were two further seats which were essentially up for grabs.
It was a decision that cost him, and three other men, their lives. Holly realized that the only way to bypass these ridiculous journeys was to charter a plane to Fargo in North Dakota. The tour was set to drive 365 miles to Moorhead, Minnesota the following day and 325 miles to Sioux City, Iowa the day after that. The venue was not originally part of the tour but its promoter offered the show to Carroll Anderson, manager of the Surf Ballroom and he accepted. Several musicians, including Valens and Richardson, started experiencing flu-like symptoms.īy February 2, when the tour arrived in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decided he had enough. Add in the exceedingly low temperatures (as low as -36 Fahrenheit), and it was a recipe for disaster. In the first 11 days of the tour, the bands went through five buses, and they had no road crew, so they were forced to load and unload all their equipment. To make matters worse, the musicians were given poor quality buses to travel in which frequently broke down. In some cases, the groups had to travel 400 miles from one city to the next, a major issue in 1959 when commercial air travel was still in its relative infancy. It was appallingly planned from the outset as the musicians were forced to zigzag around the Mid-Western region instead of a smoother and shorter set of journeys. The tour began in Wisconsin on January 23, 1959, but soon ran into logistical problems due to the enormous amount of travel.
Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and Dion DiMucci and The Belmonts joined them. The new band embarked on a 24-date tour known as the Winter Dance Party. However, he broke up the band in November of that year and assembled a new group which contained Tommy Allsup, Waylon Jennings, Frankie Sardo, and Carl Bunch. Buddy Holly – Rolling Stone Countdown to Tragedyīy 1958, Buddy Holly was one of the biggest stars in America as he had several hit singles with The Crickets. While it appeared to be a simple tragedy at the time, a range of theories have arisen, and while the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) received a request to reopen the case in March 2015, it rejected it seven months later. It is also a tale of near misses with several musicians either opting to give up their seat or, in the case of Ritchie Valens, ‘winning’ it in a coin toss. It was very much an avoidable tragedy as Holly decided to charter a plane which subsequently took off in poor, wintry conditions. The tragedy became known as ‘The Day the Music Died’ after Don McLean mentioned it in his hit song American Pie in 1971. Buddy Holly, in particular, was considered one of the most talented singer/songwriters of his generation. The event shattered the Rock n’ Roll community as three of its brightest stars were extinguished in a single moment.
Richardson), and Ritchie Valens, all perished when their plane crashed near Clear Lake in the state of Iowa. On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper (J.
0 kommentar(er)
