The Day The Music Died

Bitpig Online ^ | 2007.02.03 | Bitpig [B-chan]

[B-Chan]

BUDDY
HOLLY
LIVES

[piasa]

My glass appears to be twice as big as it needs to be.

[Petronski]

At all times?

That's a feature!

[Mustng959]

Wasn't it Waylon Jennings that was supossed to be on that flight also but he gave his seat to The Big Bopper at the last minute and took a different flight?

[tina07]

I was 2. Listened to Cousin Brucie and Dan Ingram also!

[tina07]

nostalgia....

http://musicradio.computer.net/

[tina07]

Yes.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly

Death
Following the February 2, 1959 performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new Crickets band (Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota. Carl Bunch did not take the flight as he was hospitalized for frostbite three days earlier. J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper" came down with the flu and didn't feel comfortable on the bus, so Jennings gave his plane seat to him. Ritchie Valens had never flown on a small plane and requested Allsup's seat. They flipped a coin, Valens called heads and won the toss. The four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza took off in extremely cold but otherwise good flying weather at around 1:05 A.M. but crashed only a few minutes after takeoff. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles distant from the airport, on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson, leaving Holly's pregnant bride, Maria Elena Holly, a widow (she miscarried soon after).

While theories yet abound as to the exact cause of the crash that killed Buddy Holly, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board (one of the predecessors of the Federal Aviation Administration).

Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport. In that crash, 65 died and 8 survived.


Buddy Holly's gravestoneHolly's funeral services were held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, and his body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city.

Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his name, Buddy Holley. It also features a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar. Downtown Lubbock has a "walk of fame" with plaques to various area artists such as Mac Davis, Maines Brothers Band and Waylon Jennings, with a life-size statue of Buddy, playing his Fender guitar, as its centerpiece. Downtown Lubbock also features Buddy Holly Avenue and the Buddy Holly Center, which is a museum dedicated to Texas art and music.

The tragic plane crash inspired Mike Berry & The Outlaws' single "Tribute to Buddy Holly" (1961), and singer Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie", which immortalized February 3 as "The Day the Music Died". Contrary to popular myth, "American Pie" was not the name of the ill-fated plane. The plane had no name, only the registration number N3794N.

The Surf Ballroom, a popular old-fashioned dance hall that dates to the height of Big Band Era, continues to put on shows, notably an annual Buddy Holly tribute on the anniversary of his last performances.

In 1997, Holly was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

[Smokin' Joe]

It is broken and never had anything in it at all.

May I reccommend the tin cups? They make it through the hard times better--a few dents and dings, but still hold water...(8^D)

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Thanks for posting this. Buddy is one of my all-time faves.

[Larry Lucido]

May I reccommend the tin cups?

Those would go well with my tin ear. :-)

[SE Mom]

One of my all-time favorites...thanks for posting this!

[labette]

A creepy tidbit from one of your links:

"Richardson had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. When Buddy heard about this, his reply to Waylon was "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up!", to which Waylon replied, "Well, I hope your plane crashes!" This exchange of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for many years afterward."

[Nakota]

I remember the day. The high school girls were crying on the school bus.

[aruanan]

Didn't he do music for or appear in The Blackboard Jungle?

[aruanan]

Oops, wrong guy.

[Peter W. Kessler]

That was Bill Haley and the Comets.

[Tribune7]

Very cool. Thanks.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

LOL, actually, the South is already doing it again. It is rapidly becomming the economic and political powerhouse of the country.

[B-Chan]

My pleasure. While others may forget, in the Chan household, the Buddy Holly story goes on.

[vetvetdoug]

Holley recorded in Wichita Falls a couple of times. My first knowledge of him was in the early 1960's a friend had a stack of records and in that stack were several Coral Label records. I had never heard of Coral Records so I began to play them and lo and behold it was Buddy Holley. Hooked on em' ever since.