Today’s Random Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
After he separated from the Crickets, Buddy Holly formed a new band that included Waylon Jennings, Carl Bunch and Tommie Allsup. The group, together with solo acts J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Ritchie Valens and Dion Dimucci, embarked on a hectic three-week tour called the Winter Dance Party. The grueling schedule and poor conditions on the tour bus led to an outbreak of the flu, and after the bus’s heater quit, drummer Carl Bunch’s feet became so frostbitten that he had to be hospitalized. A schoolbus was obtained, but after an impromptu show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decided to charter a plane. The club manager at their last concert arranged a flight with Dwyer Flying Services; 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson would fly three band members to Fargo, North Dakota and the rest of the musicians would meet them there to travel to their next gig in Minnesota. The Beechcraft Bonanza could carry only three passengers plus the pilot. Holly got one seat. Tommy Allsup and Richie Valens flipped a coin for another; Allsup lost. Waylon Jennings planned to go too, but Richardson, who was sick with the flu, asked to have his seat and Jennings agreed. When he heard about the trade, Holly joked to Jennings that “I hope your ol’ bus freezes up!” Jennings joked back with “And I hope your ol’ plane crashes!” Dion Dimucci had also planned to fly, but decided he didn’t want to pay the $36 for a seat. (Equivalent to about $300 in today’s money.)
The crash scene. The bodies of Buddy Holly (far left), The Big Bopper (in the corn field), and Ritchie Valens (foreground).
The plane took off just before one A.M. local time on February 3, 1959. It was snowing lightly with a strong wind, and the ceiling was low. Peterson did not receive weather briefings which indicated that the weather was going to be worse along his flight path. He was also inexperienced and not yet fully qualified to fly solely by instrument rather than vision. These factors apparently caused him to experience spatial disorientation and to think that he was ascending when he was not. The Bonanza crashed into a cornfield just six miles from the airport.
The owner of Dwyer Flying Services, Hubert Dwyer, attempted to establish radio contact with Peterson shortly after takeoff but was unable to. Once it was light, and there was still no sign of the Bonanza, Dwyer flew up in his own Cessna and spotted wreckage. He summoned a sheriff’s deputy to the field, and the four bodies were recovered. They had all died on impact. Jennings was haunted the rest of his life by his unthinking retort about the plane crashing. And the randomness of who ended up on the plane and who didn’t must have weighed heavily on the surviving musicians.
Holly’s young wife, Maria Elena, learned about her husband’s death on TV and the shock and grief caused her to miscarry a day later. She also was haunted by the fact that she had planned to accompany Buddy on the tour but had bowed out due to not feeling well. She said she knew that if she had gone, “Buddy would never have gotten on that plane.”
Culled From: Wikipedia
Submitted by: Aimee
A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
–Don McLean, “American Pie”