In the early morning hours of February 3, 1959, a private plane carrying musicians J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly (most famous for founding He died from diabetes complications in 2002. It was one of the first tragedies to strike modern American music and a figurative end to 1950s culture. Jennings spun records on local station KLLL and Holly would visit during his shifts. Don McLean coined it “The Day the Music Died” in his 1971 opus “American Pie.” And the events that unfolded Feb. 3, 1959, at the airport in neighboring Mason City, Iowa, haunted one of Holly’s bandmates — a forefather to country music’s original outlaw movement — for years to come.
Jennings would continue his music career, forging a celebrated outlaw sound heard on 1970s records such as “Dreaming My Dreams” and “The Ramblin’ Man.” Jennings was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In 1958, the “Peggy Sue” star would produce Jennings’ first record, a cut of Cajun standard “Jole Blon.”The friendship led to Jennings picking up a bass for the "Winter Dance," a tour he told Rolling Stone in 1973 that Holly did only “because he was broke. Find the perfect Buddy Holly Plane Crash stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. After months on the winter tour in uncomfortable, drafty buses, the band members' health was waning.
A young Waylon Jennings, playing bass in Holly’s backing band for the “Winter Dance Party” tour that brutally zigzagged through upper Midwest cities, offered his seat on the plane to a sick Richardson. Holly's band, The Crickets, later memorialized the day in 2016 with a farewell and final concert called "The Crickets and Buddies," where almost every living member of the band Holly helped form played tribute to the vocal legend's passing.
After, the band began discussion of their next stop on the tour, Fargo, ND. Compounding that was the guilty feeling that I was still alive.
The tour had been stranded on more than one occasion that winter and, before takeoff, Holly jestingly told Jennings he hoped the bus broke down.
Buddy Holly's funeral was held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX, on February 8, 1959, drawing over a thousand mourners.
Sixty-one years ago Monday, a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza took flight from a small-town Iowa airport, carrying three pioneers of early American rock ‘n’ roll music. Proceeds from the concert, sponsored by the Hundred Club, is expected to net more than $30,000 for families of Nashville policemen and firemen killed in the line of duty.
Four lives were lost on that cold winter night near Clear Lake, Iowa: the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Roger Peterson, the pilot that was supposed to take them to Fargo.
When the Beechcraft Bonanza carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa, in the early morning hours of February 3, … Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3 1959, while on he was tour. Select from premium Buddy Holly Plane Crash of the highest quality. The musicians, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson, chartered a plane with hopes of cutting travel time between frigid Midwestern tour stops. Holly pitched the idea to charter a four-person plane to their next stop. “Buddy was the first guy who had confidence in me,” Jennings told CMT. “Hell, I had as much star quality as an old shoe. Holly's widow did not attend.
February 3, 1959, was a tragic day for rock and roll music. But he really liked me and believed in me.”Buddy Holly performs at the Surf Ballroom on Feb. 2, 1959.Courtesy of Sevan Garabedian and James McCool, taken by Mary Gerber/Special to the RegisterWaylon Jennings, who joined Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, June Carter and others, performs during a sold-out concert at the Grand Ole Opry House Jan. 31, 1980.
Flat broke.” The "Winter Dance Party" played on for two weeks after the crash, including that night in Moorhead. N3794N containing Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson crashed into the Iowa countryside, killing all three in addition to pilot Roger Peterson.