Buddy Holly Archives

Buddy Holly never intended to climb aboard a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft after performing on Feb. 2 at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

In fact, Holly would have preferred not being on the road at all that winter … now 50 years ago.

Timing had been unfortunate from the start.

Lubbock-native Holly had moved to New York City by then. He was living in an apartment with his wife, Maria Elena Santiago Holly, following their Aug. 15, 1958 wedding. But Holly was dealing with other changes, as well, while continuing to write and arrange songs.

Holly had parted with his manager, Norman Petty of Clovis.

The Crickets, Jerry Allison and Joe B. Mauldin, his Lubbock friends, stayed with Petty.

Holly continued recording songs at his New York home – the music now referred to as “The Apartment Tapes” – but he needed money to pay bills, and that came from touring.

No funds had arrived from Petty, according to Holly’s widow.

A cold tour

Holly signed on with the Winter Dance Party: a number of pop and rock ‘n’ roll acts touring by bus through the frozen Midwest.

Shows were always sold out. Bob Dylan remembers being in the audience and seeing Holly perform during the tour.

The Independent, a nationally circulated newspaper in England, reported when Ritchie Valens’ drummer was hospitalized with frostbite, Holly sat in and played drums behind Valens for at least one show.

There was no card-playing or socializing with fellow musicians such as Dion and The Belmonts on these bus rides. It was just too cold. Temperatures had stayed consistently below freezing; it was 19 degrees below zero when the tour bus left Green Bay, Wisc., for the 300-mile trip to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

That might be bearable, but the heaters on each bus – six buses were used in the course of 10 days – were continually breaking down.

Holly was sick of shivering and needing to stay bundled up on the long, freezing bus rides. The next concert stop after Clear Lake was Moorhead, Minn, more than 300 miles away.

In addition, Holly really wanted to arrive at Moorhead early so he could do the band’s laundry.

He never arrived.

The crash

The private plane crashed shortly after midnight Feb. 3, killing all aboard: Holly, pop stars Valens and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson and young pilot Roger Petersen.

Holly originally chartered this plane to carry him and his guitarists, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup, also from West Texas.

The Big Bopper had the flu and asked for Jennings’ seat. Valens flipped a coin with Allsup for the final seat.

“I went to the station wagon and told Buddy I flipped a coin with Ritchie and lost. I told him he could pick up a letter for me when he got to Moorhead. He told me he needed my ID. So I gave him my wallet. That’s why it turned up at the crash site,” Allsup said.

Jerry Dwyer of the Dwyer Flying Service met them at the airport in nearby Mason City, packed luggage into the plane and watched it take off, following its path into the sky toward Fargo, N.D. – the closest airport to Moorhead.

Dwyer said the visibility was about eight miles and weather was not a factor. He faced a lawsuit from the Valens family in the following years and raids on his place to find parts of the plane.

He claims to have both parts of the plane hidden and untold knowledge of the events that night, which he will reveal in a book after the 50th anniversary has passed.

In the following months and years, rumors flew of disputes between the musicians, the appearance of a gun and other tales of foul play.

Iowa author Larry Lehmer, who investigated the crash for his book, “The Day The Music Died,” said it was clearly pilot error, and crash investigators were correct in their conclusions. Peterson suffered from vertigo and may have been confused whether he was rising or descending because of his inexperience using flight instruments.

Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts, was in shock when he heard about the crash the next day in Moorhead.

“I walked back out to the bus, and I was the only one on the bus and Ritchie’s blue outfit was hangin’ from the luggage rack, and Buddy Holly’s guitar was on the seat, and I was alone on the bus. And I was baffled,” he said.

The news hit Lubbock.

A member of the KLLL Radio management team, believing families had been notified, reported the crash over the radio in Lubbock. Some family members, including Holly’s mother, heard about Buddy’s death via the radio.

Sonny Curtis told The A-J he’d spent the night at Allison’s house. After hearing the news, Curtis woke up Allison and his wife, Peggy Sue, to tell them Buddy was dead.

A tough task

The body had to be identified by a family member. His older brother, Larry Holley said he’d make the trip. J.E. Weir, the husband of Buddy’s sister, Pat, volunteered to travel with Larry.

Upon arrival, Larry Holley, an ex-Marine, decided he could not go through with the identification. Weir walked in, identified the body and, according to music historian and Buddy Holly expert Bill Griggs, then told Holley he made the correct decision.

Buddy Holly had been seated at the front of the craft with the pilot. The death certificate, citing gruesome injuries, has even been online for years.

Older brother Travis Holley taught Buddy his first chords on the guitar. Larry and Travis both contributed to Buddy’s dream of being a professional singer-songwriter. Larry and Travis also still play music, but told The A-J they’ve never played any of Buddy’s songs since the day he died.

Lubbock’s tragedy felt around the world.

Singer-songwriter and recording artist Graham Nash told The A-J he’d been celebrating his Feb. 2 birthday on the same night of the Clear Lake concert.

He heard the news the next day.

“I was standing on the corner of Langworthy Road in Salford, near Manchester (England). I was with my best friend, Allan Clarke, who later started The Hollies with me. We were distraught to say the least. Tears and more tears. We had lost a great friend. (Buddy was) one of us,” said Nash.

Songwriter Tony Macaulay told The Independent, “His (Holly’s) death had such an impact on young boys, more so I think than if Elvis Presley had died.”

Some now refer to Feb. 3, 1959, as “the day the music died.”

That phrase was born in a song titled “American Pie,” written and recorded by Don McLean and released in 1971.

McLean said he was an impressionable 13-year-old boy delivering newspapers on that date. But he said, “I am perhaps proudest of the fact that I am forever linked with Buddy Holly.”

In McLean’s biography, he states writing the opening verse of “American Pie” was what helped him exorcize the grief that had been inside of him ever since he’d read the sad liner notes written for one of Holly’s albums by his widow after the plane crash.

The legacy

McLean’s song became a hit in 1971. Columbia Pictures released the movie “The Buddy Holly Story” in 1978, and Gary Busey was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Buddy.

Holly’s death was front page news in Lubbock.

However, almost 20 years would pass before city officials thought of honoring its native son on a more lasting basis.

The release of the film would inspire such tributes as the naming of the Buddy Holly Recreation Area, the construction of a life-size bronze statue of Buddy Holly and the creation of a West Texas Walk of Fame.

The first person (after Holly) inducted onto the Walk of Fame was Waylon Jennings, who went on to become a county music superstar and was personally and financially instrumental in making sure the statue was constructed by acclaimed artist Grant Speed.

Holly was only 22 years old when he died. Yet he had recorded more than 100 songs during his incredibly brief career.

Holly, as well as the Crickets, all became icons.

John Lennon told Allison, drummer for the Crickets and Holly’s best friend, “There would not even have ever been a Beatles had it not been for the Crickets.”

The Fender Stratocaster guitar gained fame after Buddy began playing it. Holly also was the very first rock ‘n’ roll star to wear his glasses while performing, thus inspiring hundreds of musicians with bad eyesight to just focus on the music

All titles by Holly continued to sell extremely well after his death. Petty even released Holly’s audition demos. The demand for unissued Holly songs was tremendous, especially in Europe and Australia.

The first Buddy Holly single released posthumously had “Peggy Sue Got Married” on one side and “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” on the flip side.

Mike Kilen of the Des Moines Register contributed to this story.