The Day the Music Died

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Image:HollyMonument.jpg "The Day the Music Died", February 3 1959, refers to the plane crash that killed three American rock and roll singers, who were very popular at the time. Early that morning, at approximately 1:05 AM Central Standard Time, an airplane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) crashed in a farmer's field en route to a concert near Fargo, North Dakota, killing all three performers as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. Don McLean's 1971 song, "American Pie", contains many references to this day, including the phrase itself.

1 Events leading to the crash
2 The crash
3 The memorial
4 Trivia
5 Reference

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Events leading to the crash

"The Winter Dance Party" was a tour that was set to cover 24 Midwest cities in three weeks. The problem was that the venues were not booked appropriately (i.e., according to the proximities of the venues to one another). For example, the tour would start at venue A, travel two hundred miles to venue B, and travel back one hundred seventy miles to venue C, which was only thirty miles from venue A. Adding to the disarray, the tour bus used to carry the musicians was ill-prepared for the weather; its heating system broke shortly after the tour began. One of the drummers may have developed frostbite while on the bus.

The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa was never intended to be a stop on the tour, but promoters, hoping to fill an open date, called the manager of the ballroom at the time and offered him the show. He accepted and the date of the show was set for February 2.

When Buddy Holly arrived at the ballroom that evening, he had had enough of the tour bus, and asked his band-mates that, once the show was over, they try to charter a plane to get to the next stop on the tour, which was the Moorhead, Minnesota Armory. The destination of the flight was Hector Airport in nearby Fargo, ND, since Moorhead did not have an airport.

Arrangements were made for the plane, and Dwyer Flying Service got the charter. A fee of $36 per person was charged for the single engine Beechcraft Bonanza that could hold three people, plus its pilot.

The Big Bopper 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 trade of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for many years afterward.

Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane before, and asked Buddy's remaining bandmate on the plane, Tommy Allsup, for the seat. Tommy said "I'll flip ya for the remaining seat". Contrary to what is seen in biographical movies, that coin toss did not happen at the airport shortly before takeoff, nor was Buddy Holly the one who tossed it. The toss happened at the ballroom shortly before departure to the airport, and the coin itself was tossed by a deejay who was working the show that night. On the toss of that coin, Ritchie won a seat on the plane.

Dion of Dion & The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride. Template:Fn

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The crash

At approximately 1:00 AM on February 3 Central Time, the plane took off from Mason City, Iowa Airport. At approximately 1:05 AM, eyewitness reports from the manager of the Surf Ballroom said that he could see the lights of the plane start to disappear from the sky to the ground. At first, he thought it was an optical illusion because of the curve of the earth and the horizon. This is the only known eyewitness account of the crash.

When the plane did not check into the Fargo Airport, and attempts to make radio contact had failed, a search party was formed. When light broke that morning, wreckage of a light plane was found in a cornfield, about five miles from Mason City Airport. When the ballroom manager told local police what he had seen the night before, he was taken to the crash site. The manager confirmed that was indeed the plane that took off the night before, and identified all three performers on board.

The pilot may not have been sufficiently experienced with the new instruments on his plane to make proper judgments.

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The memorial

In 1988, Ken Paquette, a Wisconsin fan of the 1950s era, erected a stainless steel monument depicting a steel guitar and a set of three records bearing the names of each of the three performers. The monument is located on private farmland, about one quarter of a mile west of the intersection of 315th Street and Gull Avenue, five miles north of Clear Lake.

He also created a similar stainless steel monument to the three musicians located outside the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Holly, the Big Bopper and Valens played on the night of February 1, 1959. This memorial was unveiled on July 17 2003.

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