Posted on 02/07/2025 2:50:42 PM PST by nickcarraway
On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and JP (The Big Bopper) Richardson died in a tragic plane crash. It’s an event that has come to be known as ‘the day the music died.’
It was February as Don Maclean’s song “American Pie” tells us, and it was cold. February 3, 1959, was a day that deeply affected not just Don, but millions of people across America and around the world. It was “the day the music died.” The day that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and JP (The Big Bopper) Richardson died in a plane crash.
They were all appearing on the aptly named Winter Dance Party tour along with Dion and the Belmonts and an unknown singer named Frankie Sardo. The shows themselves were fine, but the conditions were anything but. The band bus was so cold that Buddy’s drummer had to leave the tour with frostbite.
On February 1, the tour played Green Lake, Wisconsin, and the following day they were due in Clear Lake, Iowa. It was a 350-mile drive. So slow was their progress that they never made a promotional stop at a Mason City record store. They arrived at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake around 6 pm. After dinner in a nearby restaurant, Buddy told the manager of the Surf Ballroom that he wanted to charter an aircraft to fly to their next stop. It was a 500-mile drive to Moorhead, Minnesota and that meant at least ten hours on the bus, probably more.
The Surf’s manager called Dwyer’s Aviation in Mason City and was quoted $108 to charter a four-seat plane. Shortly after 8 pm, the show kicked off with Frankie Sardo, followed by the Big Bopper and then Richie Valens. After the intermission, it was Dion and the Belmonts and at 10.40 pm it was time for Buddy – his first song, “Gotta Travel On.” After “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” the final song of Buddy’s set, just about everyone got back on stage for “La Bamba.” It all wound up around 11.30 pm.
Around midnight, Buddy, J.P. Richardson, and Tommy Allsup, Buddy’s guitarist, were getting ready to leave the Surf Ballroom for the airport at Mason City. Allsup went back inside after Buddy had told him to check they had everything. Allsup bumped into Richie Valens who was signing autographs. Richie was anxious to go on the plane, as he, like everyone, hated the bus. He convinced Allsup to toss a coin for the place. Tommy Allsup lost.
Shortly after 12.30 AM, Buddy, Richie, and J.P arrived at the airport; it was snowing and the winds were increasing. Just before 1 am they boarded the 12-year-old Beech Bonanza; Buddy in the front with the pilot and the others in the back. Getting airborne just before 1 am, the plane headed northwest towards Fargo, North Dakota, the nearest airport to Moorhead.
What happened next, we will never know. It appears that the pilot misread the dials and, instead of climbing, he started descending. In the darkness and the conditions, with no real horizon visible, there is only the plane’s artificial horizon to depend on. The plane crashed five minutes later on farmland belonging to Albert Juel.
It was not until 5 am that an alert was issued for the missing plane and not until 9 am the next morning that the owner of Dwyer Aviation, flying his own plane and searching for any wreckage, spotted the crash site. All four men had died instantly and despite subsequent conspiracy theories that include Buddy forcing the pilot to hand over the controls, at gunpoint, there is little doubt that it was just a tragic accident.
Recorded and released little more than a decade later, Don McLean’s “American Pie” immortalized that night, dubbing it “the day the music died.”
Buddy Holly - Not Fade Away (HD) 2020
Waylon Jennings Recalls Moments Before Buddy Holly’s Tragic Plane Crash
“The band bus was so cold that Buddy’s drummer had to leave the tour with frostbite.”
A better bus would have made a lot of difference.
I would have demanded the Ted Danson bus.
“I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away”.
You can lay it all on the pilot.
He decided to fly in conditions
that he knew were unsafe.
Nice of Waylon Jennings to give up his seat to JP Richardson on the warm plane.
The pilot was only 22 years old, not instrument current, and instrument flying in those days was less than perfect. So you have to imagine a 22-year-old, at midnight or 1 AM, with three rock stars who want to go. Took off and white out conditions, made it a very short distance before vertigo took over.
Read the FAA report on the crash. Describing all the pressure on the pilot, the weather, his certification, it was an accident waiting to happen. Very tragic.
If you go to the Buddy Holly Museum in Lubbock, they have those glasses found in the field on display. Apparently Elton John was so moved by Buddy Holly and his career, that he started wearing the big Elton John glasses as a tribute. It’s actually Elton John wearing Buddy Holly glasses in his thinking.
The plane was a “forked-tailed doctor killer,” but the Bonanza’s self-jettisoning empennage had nothing to do with this mishap.
The the name painted on the nose of the plane was “American Pie.”
Yes, at night in a blizzard and no instrument rating. And even if he did have an instrument rating it’s still would have been a stupid decision, foolish kid!
They were going to play in the National Guard Armory in Moorhead. Year later I went to a college dance there.
One of the greatest ever. Lovely melodies and lyrics. Music.
A factor in many crashes, Get-there-itis.
Bkmk
The Bonanza is a fine airplane as long as you don’t try to fly it into a storm. I’m not aware of anything else that will fly that fast on that amount of fuel.
It’s Don McLean telling how he got into music, how Buddy Holly inspired him, how he came to write American Pie, and the whole program climaxes with a memorial concert in Minnesota near where the fateful plane crash took place.
It’s a MUST SEE. I very strongly and favorably recommend it!
I’m not even a big fan of any of the artists mentioned, but it really moved me. Again, it’s a must see.
According to Hillary, the plane crash was a result of 5he defund by DOGE and Sean Duffy . . .
You are right it was Fast!
I even got some hours "stick: in it!
If you’re on I-35 it’s worth the stop to see the Surf Ballroom. Just a couple miles off the highway. Very moving experience to imagine the setting.
I first stopped there in the 70s and there was practically nothing noting the history. Now it’s quite well appointed and there’s no charge to enter.
They still host concerts and dances. The booths are cramped - back when people weren’t all at least 250 pounds. And if you’re a guy check out the vintage men’s room.
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