The Story of Rock's First Tragedy: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper Killed in Plane Crash REDDIT Hulton Archive, Getty Images Rock ‘n’ roll was still in its infancy when it suffered its first tragedy. On Feb. 3, 1959, three of its biggest stars — Buddy Holly , Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, known as the Big Bopper — were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. The three acts, along with Dion and the Belmonts, were on a package tour called the Winter Dance Party, which was to play 24 Midwestern cities in as many days. But the bus’ heating system was ill-equipped and broke down a few days later, which caused some musicians to catch the flu and Holly’s drummer Carl Bunch to be hospitalized for frostbite. By the time they reached the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake on Feb. 2, about a week and a half into the tour, Holly, after the show, decided to charter a plane from nearby Mason City to Fargo, N.D., just across the state line from their next gig in Moorhead, Minn.

As a bonus, Holly would be able to do his laundry, which had been neglected since the tour began. The plane, a Beechwood Bonanza, had room for only three passengers — Holly and his band — and the pilot, Roger Peterson. Holly’s bass player, future country legend Waylon Jennings , gave up his seat to Richardson, who was ill. According to Jennings’ autobiography, Holly teased his bass player by saying, “Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up.” To which Jennings responded, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.” There are conflicting stories as to how Valens wound up in the third seat. Tommy Allsup, Holly’s guitarist, claimed that he lost a coin flip to Valens in the dressing room. In 2010, Dion DiMucci, who had been silent about that night for 51 years, claimed that he, not Allsup, was slated for the third seat because he was one of the headliners. But after winning the coin toss, he balked at paying $36 for the flight — the amount his parents paid in monthly rent for the apartment where he grew up — and gave Valens the seat.

Local DJ Bob Hale, who was the MC for the concert, agrees that it was between Allsup and Valens, but that he, not Allsup, flipped the coin. Regardless of the contradictions, around 12:55AM on Feb. 3, the plane carrying Holly, Richardson and Valens took off in a snowstorm with strong winds. But the plane traveled only a few miles before crashing, killing all four men instantly. The federal investigation ruled that even though the weather played a large role in the accident, the 21-year-old Peterson was too inexperienced to have been flying in such conditions. In addition, he had most likely misread the altitude indicator, which was different than the one on which he had trained, and inadvertently brought the plane down instead of up. At the time, Holly’s wife of six months, Maria Elena, was two weeks pregnant. The day after the crash, she suffered a miscarriage from the emotional trauma. In March 1980, a long-missing piece of the plane crash was discovered. Holly’s signature black-rimmed glasses had landed in a snow bank and were discovered in the spring of 1959, after the snow melted.

They were brought to the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s office, sealed in a manila envelope and forgotten about for 21 years. Upon discovery, the glasses were returned to his widow and are currently on permanent display at the Buddy Holly Center in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. Rockers Who Died at Age 27 Image of Ritchie Valens, J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson and Buddy Holly - Rolling Stone Ritchie Valens, J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson and Buddy Holly Ritchie Valens, J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson and Buddy Holly A deadly plane crash robbed rock and roll of three of its top singers The Daily Tribune newspaper reports the deaths of Buddy Holly, J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens. Credit: GAB Archive/Redferns Clear Lake, Iowa, Feb. 3 (UPI) More News All Stories Three of the nation's top rock 'n roll singing stars – Ritchie Valens, J. P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson, and Buddy Holly – died today with their pilot in the crash of a chartered plane.

The singers, members of a rock 'n roll troupe touring Midwest cities, died because they wanted to make a fast hop between dates so they could get their shirts laundered. The tragedy that ended the careers of the three rising stars symbolized, in a way that was powerfully real, the decline of the strange new music that was carrying us into adolescence and adulthood. In rock and roll one has to be a fan as well as a listener, and the energy of the music depends on stars as much as it does on expertise and creativity. Send Jimi Hendrix to prison for a few years, bust John Lennon and Mick Jagger just one more time, and it won't matter much how good the next album by the Byrds sounds. Rock and roll is not composed in conservatories or judged in museums – this is one world where infinity does not go up on trial. 19 and 59 – the stars were gone. The sound Buddy Holly had brought together was left to the second stringers, members of the bands who previously had been happy to back him up or copy his material. Then Bobby Vee appropriated the Crickets for an LP, and hired a young piano player, Bob Dylan , for his road band.

That was where the momentum was. Rock and roll, as Dylan himself put it, became "a piece of cream." Today, we can discover that the heritage of that flimsy, beautiful era comes to more than just the million-sellers everyone remembers. The spirit of the old music, brash, innocent, is a spirit our best craftsmen have never lost, and the memories are more than music – they jump out of an awareness of crucial, sometimes tragic events that exaggerate every note of "La Bamba" and "Peggy Sue" until there's just a lot more there to hear. Following an appearance before 1000 fans at Clear Lake last night, they chartered a plane at the Mason City Airport, two miles east of here, and took off at 1:50 AM for Fargo, North Dakota. Their Bonanza four-seat single engine plane crashed minutes later. If Buddy Holly were alive today I've no doubt that he, like Johnny Cash , would be recording with Bob Dylan.

(The band, for their part, tried to get Gene Vincent to visit the sessions for their latest album, only to discover him living in a hospital in Los Angeles, crippled by an accident.) When young Bob Dylan brought an electric rock and roll band on stage at a junior high school music pageant back in Hibbing, Minnesota, to a reception similar to the one he received when he did the same thing at Newport years later, Buddy Holly tunes were most likely part of the program. Traces of Holly's vocal style, his phrasing rather than his insane changes from deep bass to something resembling soprano, pop up all through Dylan's career: on an obscure 1962 Columbia single, "Mixed-Up Confusion," on "Absolutely Sweet Marie," on "I Shall Be Free No. 10," anywhere you look. Dylan and Holly share a clipped, staccato delivery that communicates a sly sense of cool, almost teenage masculinity. This spirit is captured at its best on one of Holly's finest albums, The Great Buddy Holly (Vocalion VL 3811), recently released as a budget item ($1.98).

The LP contains ten cuts recorded in Nashville before Holly made it as a star (these are the songs discussed by Barret Hansen in "Tex-Mex," the article in ROLLING STONE #23, but they are available). The accompanying musicians, lacking the flash and the excitement of Holly's later band, do all the right things and put the burden on Holly. He carries it with ease, on an early version of "That'll Be the Day," on love songs, on school-boy rockers. It's with the last two songs, "Don't Come Back Knockin'" and "Midnight Shift," that Holly gets into rock and roll like a young Carl Perkins singing about women who cheat on him, not people who step on his shoes. This isn't the blues – there is no self-pity, not even a tear. Buddy has the last laugh. "Annie's beein working on the midnight shift" – he's glad to let you know, and he's not referring to overtime pay at the all-night drugstore. The phrasing is simply what we know as pure Dylan— If she tells you she wants to use the caahhhh! Never explains what she want it faaahhh!

—what Phil Spector meant when he heard the Four Tops doing "Reach Out" and said, "yeah, that's a black man singing Dylan." In an odd way, it was the Four Tops doing Buddy Holly. If things had been different, Holly and Dylan might be surprising us all with a snappy duet on "I Don't Believe You." The plane skidded across the snow for 558 feet. Holly, 21, was found twenty feet from the wreckage. Following his death, Coral Records released half a dozen albums of Holly's hits and memorabilia. While The Buddy Holly Story (biggest hits, Coral CRL 757279) ought to be part of everyone's collection, there is much more. Holly's obscure recordings, made on home tape-recorders, in high school with his pal Bob Montgomery, demos and rehearsal acetates, have been re-recorded with studio musicians, often the Fireballs, supplementing the original vocal tracks.

The feeling one gets from listening to these cuts, an uneven collection of various Number One records ("Smokey Joe's Cafe," "Shake Rattle and Roll," "Blue Monday," "Love is Strange," "Rip It Up," and so one), is that of visiting a funeral parlor to watch an embalmer touch up the face of a body mangled in an accident. The guy does a great job but you still don't recognize the face. For the most part, these records are interesting historically, not musically – they show where Holly came from, sounding like an anemic Carl Perkins on "Blue Suede Shoes," until he finally emerges as an original, able to master any sort of material in a way that is unique and compelling. His vocal on "Love Is Strange" steals the song from Micky and Sylvia. Holly had it all down. Sometimes, these ancient cuts provide a real sense of what rock and roll might have become had Holly lived.

The same shock of recognition that knocked out the audiences at the Fillmore West when the band from Big Pink lit into Little Richard takes place, with the same song, when the ghost of Buddy Holly is joined by the Fireballs for "Slippin' and Slid-in'" (from Giant, the "new" Holly release, Coral CRL 757504). An agile, humorous vocal is carried by a band that knows all the tricks. They break it open with the Everly Brothers' own seductive intro, constantly switching, musically, from song to song while Holly ties it together. The guitarist actually sounds like Robbie Robertson, throwing in bright little patterns around the constant whoosh of the cymbals. The excitement and confusion that comes from a precise marriage of the two songs is irresistible – it's certainly one of the best things Buddy Holly never did. He was only twenty one, so Coral Records just brought him out of the grave. Valens, a 17 year old recording sensation hailed as "the next Elvis Presley ," was thrown forty feet. Valens, from Pacoima, California, was rapidly becoming one of the hottest singing talents in the country.

His first record, of a song he had written called "Come On, Let's Go," was released last summer and made him famous. Richard Valenzuela, a Southern California boy. Ruben of Ruben and the Jets was patterned after Ritchie, and much of the material on the Cruising album is a fair representation of Valens' music. Today, it might all seem rather laughable, but for Ritchie and his fans, as Zappa would be the first to admit, it was no joke, it was just the way it was. "We made this album because we really like this kind of music: just a bunch of old men with rock & roll clothes on sitting around the studio, mumbling about the good old days." Valens was a hero to the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles, and they cheered him on with the same kind of support they gave when one of their boys faced a black welterweight in the annual Golden Gloves Tournament. It meant a lot to break into a field that had always been in the hands of larger, more established minorities – blacks, Italians, Okies – Ritchie was the first Chicano singer, a hero, just a kid, but a hero.

Valens sang fragile melodies with the enthusiasm and commitment of Little Richard, and the tension that resulted from a fusion of these two elements in a single song captivated his audience and made him a star. Imagine Little Richard singing "Whispering Bells" or perhaps something like Mary Hopkin's "Goodbye" the way he sang "Lucille" and you have Ritchie Valens. He could turn it around: "Donna" is as touching a ballad as "I Threw It All Away." Valens took an old Mexican festival song, "La Bamba," gave it a rock and roll beat, and scored with one of the most exciting records of the era. The split second flashes of the intro, the guitar break that happens before Ritchie has finished with the words – they were all in so much of a hurry the notes pile up on top of each other until the song itself explodes. And Valens traveled twenty feet farther than either Buddy Holly or the Big Bopper. What is left?

The only LP by Ritchie Valens that is still in print is a weird budget album (88c) on Guest Star Records (GS-1469), available in supermarkets and drugstores, "a product of the Synthetic Plastics Co." "Fine records need not be expensive" is their slogan. Again, more graverobbers. The company has taken Ritchie's audition tapes (vocal and fine acoustic guitar playing), studio jams that were recorded for vocals that were never sung, and some unreleased masters, added the hit version of "Donna," and come up with "an album." Surprisingly, it works as a record: starting with the early tapes, a kid trying to get his first contract, the sense of melody is there and there is no doubt about the talent. As with the Holly albums, we go through a period of uncertainty, the tracks randomly titled ("Rock Little Donna" is really about a girl named Susie), Ritchie finding himself, beginning to work with a band. Then the triumph, his perfect "Donna," a few pleasant songs, two jams, and it's over. This is Juke Box Heaven, courtesy of Guest Star Records. This is what is left.

When Valens died "La Bamba" was right up there in the Top Ten; a week later it was slipping down off the charts, and Bobby Vinton was there, holding Ritchie's coat. This story is from the June 28th, 1969 issue of Rolling Stone. Don’t Miss a Story Sign up for our newsletter to receive breaking news directly in your inbox. We may use your e-mail address to send you the newsletter and offers that may interest you, on behalf of Rolling Stone and its partners. For more information please read our Privacy Policy How we use your email address Trending Ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, the trending score reflects the number of users reading a story in real time. What is this? Buddy Holly - Plane Crash Photographs & Footage - The Day The Music Died (February 3rd,1959) - YouTube Buddy Holly - Plane Crash Photographs & Footage - The Day The Music Died (February 3rd,1959) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Aug 22, 2010 On this day, in 1959, rock 'n' roll pioneer Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with fellow stars Ritchie Valens and JP 'The Big Bopper' Richardson. Their plane went near Clear Lake, Iowa, while the trio were in the middle of a three- week tour across ...On this day, in 1959, rock 'n' roll pioneer Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with fellow stars Ritchie Valens and JP 'The Big Bopper' Richardson. Their plane went near Clear Lake, Iowa, while the trio were in the middle of a three- week tour across the American Midwest. Category February 3, 1959: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens are killed in plane crash - BT February 3, 1959: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens are killed in plane crash Three of rock 'n' roll's earliest stars died on this day in 1959 when a plane they had chartered crashed in poor weather in Iowa.

Print this story Fans of rock 'n’ roll music from across the world were plunged into mourning on this day in 1959 when three of the genre’s leading performers were killed in a plane crash. Buddy Holly, 22, J P ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson, 28, and Ritchie Valens, 17, were travelling between shows on their 'Winter Dance Party' tour of the US, when the light aircraft Holly had chartered to take them to North Dakota crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa. Pilot error and poor weather conditions were blamed for bringing down the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza plane. The three performers were thrown from the wreckage and died instantly; Pilot Roger Peterson was also killed. The tour had been hampered by having to travel long distances between venues in snow and bad weather on a poorly-equipped bus. Flu had broken out among the performers, with Richardson in particular suffering. He had persuaded Holly’s bass player Waylon Jennings to give up his seat on the plane, so he could arrive earlier at the next tour destination and get more rest. Valens had won a coin toss with guitarist Tommy Allsup for the third and final passenger seat.

Holly had been a star since he and his band The Crickets had reached number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic with the single That’ll Be The Day. Richardson, a DJ turned performer, was most famous for his hit Chantilly Lace, while Valens enjoyed chart success with songs Donna and La Bamba. The death of the three stars was commemorated by Don McLean in his 1972 hit song American Pie, which has subsequently led February 3 1959 to become known as “The Day the Music Died”. Do you remember “The Day the Music Died”? Which are your favourite tracks by Holly, Valens and Richardson? Let us know in the comments section below. The Day The Music Died - Did you know? Holly’s real name was Charles Hardin Holley. He changed the spelling of his surname after it had been misspelled on a recording contract. Holly had huge success with The Crickets for two years, but he was determined to live and record in New York, while his bandmates wanted to stay in their hometown of Lubbock, Texas; as a consequence, they had parted company in late 1958.

Richardson had created the persona of The Big Bopper while working as a DJ in Texas. He broke the world record for continuous live broadcasting in 1957, DJ’ing for five days, two hours and eight minutes, and playing 1,821 records. Valens – real name Richard Steven Valenzuela – had only been recording since July 1958, having been spotted while still a schoolboy by record label owner Bob Keane. He finally left high school to concentrate on music in the autumn of that year. The first bus used to transport the Winter Dance Party tour performers was abandoned when its heaters broke down. It was replaced by a school bus. The weather was so bad during the tour that drummer Carl Bunch had to be hospitalised for frostbitten feet. Before the final passengers were decided upon, another tour star, Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts, was asked if he would like a seat on the fatal flight. He demurred on being told it would cost him $36 (around £193 in today’s money). The first song to commemorate the crash was Three Stars by Tommy Dee, which was covered by Eddie Cochran.

Cochran would himself meet an early death, in a car crash in April 1960, aged just 21. FLASHBACK: 'THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED' - BUDDY HOLLY, RITCHIE VALENS, & 'THE BIG BOPPER' REMEMBERED - 93.3 WMMR February 3, 2015 FLASHBACK: 'THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED' - BUDDY HOLLY, RITCHIE VALENS, & 'THE BIG BOPPER' REMEMBERED It was 56 years ago today (February 3rd, 1959) that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash after a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa. The three had been performing along with Dion & The Belmonts as part of the Winter Dance Party Tour, which would cover 24 cities in a short three-week period from January 23rd to February 15th.

Holly, who had parted ways with longtime backing group the Crickets the previous year, was backed up by a then-unknown Waylon Jennings on bass and Tommy Allsup on lead guitar. Dion DiMucci says that although the shows were always hot, his favorite moments from the tour were jamming on the near freezing bus on the way to the next town: "Well, we used to play in the back of the bus -- Ritchie Valens, myself and Buddy Holly. The Big Bopper didn't join in, he sat in the front with his beer. But we would rock in the back of the bus. You talk about tapes -- I wish there was a tape going on." Throughout the tour, the musicians' bus was either breaking down or often without heat. At one point, it was so cold that the tour's drummer developed frostbite, resulting in the Belmonts' Angelo D'Aleo -- as well as Valens -- serving double-duty by filling in on drums.

When the tour finally arrived at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2nd, 1959, Holly had made plans to fly out to the next city directly after the show, rather than brave the unheated 430-mile bus trip to Moorhead, Minnesota. He had hoped to get to their next stop with time to rest and do his laundry. Dion says that the time he spent with Holly has left a deep and lasting impression on him, and he remembers him as a man wise beyond his years: "I spent two weeks with him. And he was very mature for his age. I mean, I was 19 -- he was 22. He was a very decisive guy. I don't know if it was his upbringing, but I couldn't make decisions that fast. I mean... Well, he rented a plane! At 22 years old, 'O.K.

listen' -- you know, he was recruiting people -- 'Let's fly out and we'll just split it.' But you think of a 22-year-old chartering a plane, that was his kind of personality." Holly chartered a plane to fly him and his band to Fargo, North Dakota, near Moorhead. Jennings and Allsup gave up their seats to Richardson and Valens. Dion was supposed to be on the plane rather than Valens, but balked when he heard that his share would be a whopping $36 -- the exact amount of his parents' monthly rent back home in the Bronx. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up!" Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your plane crashes!" This friendly banter would haunt Jennings for years. Valens, who was sick, told Allsup, "I'll flip you for the remaining seat." On the toss of a coin, Allsup lost the seat -- but won the rest of his life. The red Beechcraft Bonanza took off from Mason City, Iowa, ten miles east of Clear Lake, at around 1:50 a.m.

on February 3rd, 1959. A cold wind immediately gave way to a snow, which drastically reduced visibility. The ground was already blanketed in white. The pilot may have been inexperienced with the instrumentation. The plane never made it to Minnesota. Minutes after takeoff, one wing hit the ground and the small plane corkscrewed over and over. The three young stars and pilot Roger Peterson died immediately on impact. Over the years there has been speculation as to whether a gun was accidentally fired inside the plane, disabling or killing the pilot. The most logical explanation suggests that encased in a sea of white snow, with only white below, Peterson simply flew the plane into the ground. At the time of the crash, Buddy Holly was 22 years old. Ritchie Valens was 17, and the Big Bopper was 28. Buddy Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas on September 7th, 1936 as Charles Hardin Holley. Although many of his greatest hits from the 1950s, such as "Peggy Sue," "Not Fade Away," "Every Day," "Maybe Baby" "Well...

Alright," and "That'll Be The Day" have stood the test of time, Buddy's ultimate influence was not as a performer but as a songwriter. Buddy Holly helped spearhead a whole new genre, serving as a main inspiration for the next generation of rock songwriters including, most importantly, John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Paul Simon, Pete Townshend, Brian Wilson & Mike Love, Ray Davies, and Bob Dylan. Paul McCartney has long cited Buddy Holly as his main songwriting influence went on to purchase Holly's songwriting catalogue. He recalled the scene for him on February 3rd, 1959: "I remember being in my old school playground, getting there in the morning, and we used to have a little thing called 'Smoker's Corner,' where those of us who were about 15, 16, or something, would, y'know, think we were real hoods, smoke a quick Woodbine (cigarette) before we went to class early in the morning. And someone had a Daily Mirror -- and there, on the headline: 'Buddy Holly Died.' Oh my God.

The rug was pulled out from underneath us. It was quite shocking. It's one of those events where people can remember where they were." All three fallen stars, Holly, Valens, and Richardson, became far bigger in death than during their short careers. Although talented in his own right, Valens -- who had only one double A-sided hit with "La Bamba" and "Donna" -- was not yet a major star on Holly's level. The "Big Bopper" -- who in 1959 had written and produced Johnny Preston's 1960 Number One hit "Running Bear" -- was a novelty act whose day job was as an outlandish disc jockey. Although Valens' career might have gone on to reach further heights, it's more than likely that "The Bopper" would have remained more a rock "personality" than a musical force for the ages. Dying along with Holly made them both rock immortals.

Graham Nash recalls how he and fellow Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke dealt with the news of Holly's sudden death: "I remember being on the street corner with my friend Allan Clarke, who later formed the Hollies with me -- my best friend at the time -- crying our eyes out. I mean we lost -- not only Buddy, but the 'Big Bopper' and Ritchie Valens. Y'know, I wasn't as much into their music, although I knew it, but I was totally involved in Buddy's music and we were crying our eyes out." Several films featuring the tragedy have been made over the years, including 1978's Oscar-nominated, but historically inaccurate, The Buddy Holly Story, and La Bamba, the 1987 biopic which chronicled Valens' life. According to several sources, including Jennings, Holly's post-tour plans were to reconvene with the Crickets -- drummer Jerry "J.I." Allison and bassist Joe B. Mauldin -- and carry on with Allsup on lead guitar. Holly was also planning on starting his own record label -- Prism Records -- and signing Jennings as its first artist. J.I.

Allison recalled the deal that he and Holly made prior to him moving to New York City in 1958: "The last time I saw Buddy as a matter of fact he said, 'O.K., if you're not gonna move to New York, y'all just work as 'the Crickets' and I'll work as 'Buddy Holly' and if it doesn't work out for either one of us we'll get back together, okay?' And we said 'Fine.' And Waylon told me that Buddy was talking to him on that last tour and said 'I'm going to get J.I. and Joe B. back.'" Holly's widow, Maria Elena, who miscarried their child shortly after his death, recalls their time living in New York City as being an eye-opener for him as he explored the Greenwich Village folk scene and jammed most mornings with musicians at Washington Square Park, which was practically right outside his apartment building the Brevoort: "He really liked the excitement, and at that time that's where -- as they say, where the action was. New York at that time was for musicians. On top of that, that's where I'm from.

That's where the Brevoort is on Fifth Avenue, close to Washington Square Park. And that was something that Buddy really enjoyed, because that's where he saw that he could start a new career." She remembers Buddy performing for free, almost daily, with local musicians at the Park: "Right in the fountain -- y'know, they'd have the benches there in the morning. We'd walk to Washington Square Park, and that's where a lot of musicians congregated. Bud would sit with a guitar and start playing, and then all of a sudden you see all these people gravitating towards him. They'd say, 'Are you Buddy Holly -- 'That'll Be The Day'?' And then. . . little by little, we did that every day." We asked Graham Nash what he made of Holly upon first hearing him in 1957: "Unbelievable. He was one of us, he was a rock star that had glasses. It wasn't a sex thing, y'know, like Elvis (Presley) was with his swiveling hips. Buddy Holly touched people's hearts in how simple his music was and how attainable it was for everybody. I mean, who doesn't know a Buddy Holly song?

I was looking the other day at The Rolling Stone 500 Best Songs Of All Time and he's got four of them in there! We called ourselves the Hollies for God sake. And he definitely without question influenced the Beatles." The Everly Brothers frequently hit the road with the other forefathers of rock n' roll, and both Don and Phil Everly struck up an immediate and close relationship with Buddy Holly. The late-Phil Everly, who was a pallbearer at Holly's funeral in 1959, recalled the scene of rock's earliest tours in an upcoming documentary called Inventing Rock N' Roll, produced by Everly Films: "The first time I met Buddy Holly was. . . Don and I joined a big package tour, y'know. . . I believe it was the Fats Domino tour. Everybody was on it -- it was something. And, what it was, everybody was down in the, like, locker rooms, like at a sports event y'know, with a -- everybody had a hook (laughs), y'know, for your wardrobe, and we all sat on benches and we were all in the same room and that's when we first met him.

I was 18 at the time, so it was like going to college. Everybody was a contemporary and all that. It was like being in a fraternity (laughs), it was really, really something. We rode buses together on the tour and just was the best of. . . I always call it the golden age of rock." Over the years, Buddy Holly's legend has continued to grow, with his music paving the way for the British Invasion and the burgeoning singer/songwriter movement of the late '60s and the early '70s. In 1971 Don McLean's Number One hit "American Pie" opened with the narrator learning the news of Holly's tragic death, coining the phrase "The Day The Music Died." It's come to light in recent years that Ritchie Valens had a direct effect on the Southern, California rock scene of the 1960's. In the late-'50s Valens gave guitar lessons to Hawthorne's John Maus. Maus -- who later changed his name to John Walker upon forming the Walker Brothers -- in turn gave guitar lessons to future Beach Boys Carl Wilson and David Marks.

Buddy Holly's music has lived on through various reissues over the years as well, with Paul McCartneybuying his music copyrights in 1976 and starting the annual "Buddy Holly Week" every September 7th on Holly's birthday. The Crickets have continued to record and tour and now feature early member Sonny Curtis on guitars and vocals. "J.I." Allison says the group might spruce up Holly's final recordings that he recorded in his New York City apartment, in the weeks before he died. The 14 tunes include "Peggy Sue Got Married," "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and others that have been overdubbed by additional musicians over the years: "I think it would be great fun to go do that, and, and I think those are some of the best songs Buddy ever wrote. The tape machine he did that on was the same machine that we recorded 'That'll Be The Day' and 'Peggy Sue' and, you know, all those things (on).

The quality of 'The Apartment Tapes' was great!" SIDE NOTES After years of speculation about a gun being fired on the plane, the Bopper's son Jay Richardson had his father exhumed and used the opportunity to see if there was any foul play involved in the crash. Jay, who stars in a Big Bopper tribute act, was born three months after his father's death, and first laid eyes on his father during the recent exhumation. Out now is Down The Line: Rarities, the latest Buddy Holly & The Crickets collection featuring rare undubbed classic performances, along with Holly's final demos taped only weeks before his death.

The 59-track collection features the original rehearsal tapes of Buddy and friends -- including the Crickets -- tearing though Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Little Richard's "Rip It Up," Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," Elvis Presley's "Good Rockin' Tonight," Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes," Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll" and Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley." Other highlights include previously unreleased takes and alternate versions of such Crickets-era classics as "Peggy Sue," "Fool's Paradise," "Think It Over," "Love's Made A Fool Of You," and "That'll Be The Day," among many others. The main draw of the set is the unadorned full "Apartment Tape," featuring Buddy's final demos recorded in late 1958 and early 1959 in Manhattan. The remastered tapes include such future Holly standards as "Peggy Sue Got Married," "What To Do," "Learning The Game," "Crying, Waiting, Hoping," and "Dearest," which made its debut in 2008 in the independent hit film Juno.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?? The world has changed so drastically since 1959, and the changes that have occurred in art, politics, and social culture are literally a world away from when Buddy Holly played that night at Clear Lake, Iowa's Surf Ballroom. When you think about how long ago Buddy Holly walked this Earth, think about this: his death was only 13 years after Hiroshima and six months after the formation of NASA. Buddy Holly missed it all -- the Kennedys, the Beatles, dope, Bob Dylan, Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, the sexual revolution -- but he nearly made it. What do you think he would have accomplished? Would he have eased into record production and developing new artists? At 22 would he have been deemed too old for the burgeoning new light pop of Neil Sedaka, Fabian, and Frankie Avalon -- or would he have led the pack with his pocket-sized rock masterpieces? Would Holly have gone the Nashville or Bakersfield route and helped redefine country music for a generation? The possibilities are as saddening as they are endless.

One thing's for certain, Holly was a songwriter first and because of that it's hard to ever imagine him becoming the all-but-forgotten dinosaurs that his peers -- and fellow inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Famers -- Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, and Fats Domino -- had all become by 1965. Although Jerry Lee still feebly kicks over the piano stool at the end of his shows, and Chuck Berry is still duckwalking through tunes he wrote in 1957, it's hard to imagine Holly ever evolving into a grotesque parody of himself while wearing the signature horned rims with the curly forelock, hiccupping his way through "Peggy Sue" at age 79. What do you think? CHECK IT OUT: Buddy Holly on December 29th, 1957 performing "Peggy Sue" on The Arthur Murray Dance Party: CHECK IT OUT: Ritchie Valens performing "Ooh!

My Head" in 1958's Go, Johnny Go!: CHECK IT OUT: "The Big Bopper" in 1958 performing "Chantilly Lace" live on American Bandstand: BBC ON THIS DAY | 3 | 1959: Buddy Holly killed in air crash 1959: Buddy Holly killed in air crash Three young rock 'n' roll stars have been killed in a plane crash in the United States. Buddy Holly, 22, Jiles P Richardson - known as the Big Bopper - 28, and Ritchie Valens, 17, died in a crash shortly after take-off from Clear Lake, Iowa at 0100 local time. The pilot of the single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza plane was also killed. Early reports from the scene suggest the aircraft spun out of control during a light snowstorm. Only the pilot's body was found inside the wreckage as the performers were thrown clear on impact. Holly hired the plane after heating problems developed on his tourbus.

All three were travelling to Moorhead, Minnesota, the next venue in their Winter Dance Party Tour Holly had set up the gruelling schedule of concerts - covering 24 cities in three weeks - to make money after the break-up of his band, The Crickets, last year. Recorded life Born Charles Hardin Holley - changed to Holly after a misspelling on a contract - he had several hit records, including a number one, in the US and UK with That'll be the Day in 1957. A singer and guitarist, he was inspired by Elvis Presley after seeing him at an early concert in his home town of Lubbock, Texas. With Presley serving in the Army, some critics expected Holly to take over his crown. Richard Valenzuela was the first Mexican American to break into mainstream music, after being discovered by record producer Bob Keane, who changed his name to Ritchie Valens. He had made three albums and achieved a number two chart position in the US with his composition Donna - about his girlfriend - in 1958. His rock 'n' roll re-working of the traditional Mexican song La Bamba - on the B-side of Donna - has also received acclaim.

The Big Bopper had been a record-breaking radio DJ - with a 122-hour marathon stint - and reached number six in the American charts with his record Chantilly Lace. The day the music died - Feb 03, 1959 - HISTORY.com The day the music died Share this: The day the music died Author The day the music died URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1959, rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorehead, Minnesota. Investigators blamed the crash on bad weather and pilot error. Holly and his band, the Crickets, had just scored a No. 1 hit with “That’ll Be the Day.” After mechanical difficulties with the tour bus, Holly had chartered a plane for his band to fly between stops on the Winter Dance Party Tour. However, Richardson, who had the flu, convinced Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings to give up his seat, and Ritchie Valens won a coin toss for another seat on the plane.

Holly, born Charles Holley in Lubbock, Texas, and just 22 when he died, began singing country music with high school friends before switching to rock and roll after opening for various performers, including Elvis Presley. By the mid-1950s, Holly and his band had a regular radio show and toured internationally, playing hits like “Peggy Sue,” “Oh, Boy!,” “Maybe Baby” and “Early in the Morning.” Holly wrote all his own songs, many of which were released after his death and influenced such artists as Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. Another crash victim, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, 28, started out as a disk jockey in Texas and later began writing songs. Richardson’s most famous recording was the rockabilly “Chantilly Lace,” which made the Top 10.

He developed a stage show based on his radio persona, “The Big Bopper.” The third crash victim was Ritchie Valens, born Richard Valenzuela in a suburb of Los Angeles, who was only 17 when the plane went down but had already scored hits with “Come On, Let’s Go,” “Donna” and “La Bamba,” an upbeat number based on a traditional Mexican wedding song (though Valens barely spoke Spanish). In 1987, Valens’ life was portrayed in the movie La Bamba, and the title song, performed by Los Lobos, became a No. 1 hit. Valens was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. Singer Don McLean memorialized Holly, Valens and Richardson in the 1972 No. 1 hit “American Pie,” which refers to February 3, 1959 as “the day the music died.” Related Videos

Question: What rocker died in a plane crash along with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens?
Answer: Buddy Holly