The Big Bopper (born Jiles Perry “J. P.” Richardson, Jr. October 24, 1930 – February 3, 1959) was an American musician, songwriter and disc jockey, whose big rockabilly look, style, voice, and exuberant personality made him an early rock and roll star. He is best known for his 1958 recording of “Chantilly Lace”. On February 3, 1959, Richardson died in a plane crash in Iowa, along with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and pilot Roger Peterson. That event has become known as “The Day the Music Died” because it is so called in Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie”. (More from Wikipedia)
Born J. P. Richardson, Jr. in 1930, the Big Bopper was the other rocker that passed on the day the music died. Starting with a brash “Hello, Ba-a-a-by!”, his big hit “Chantilly Lace” is simply a delight to the ears – a compelling chorus ending with “Oh, baby, that's what I like!” that is interspersed with an improvised telephone conversation with his girlfriend. One listen, and there is no doubt that the Big Bopper was a born entertainer. I remember a reminiscence years ago where someone said he could have been a successful actor or comedian had he lived.
J. P. Richardson, Jr. – “Jiles” or “Jape” to his friends – grew up in Beaumont, Texas in the same government housing project as one of the greatest country musicians, George Jones, who died just his past March. After graduating from high school and a few years in college, J. P. Richardson, Jr. became a disc jockey at a local radio station, KTRM (now KZZB) and was permanently hired in 1949.
While at KTRM in 1953, Schlitz Brewing Company was offering a sponsorship to someone who could come up with a character that they could promote, so J. P. Richardson, Jr. invented “the Big Bopper” (“bop”comes from a form of jazz music called be-bop dating from the 1940’s and has become a slang term meaning all sorts of things). He then used this moniker in his recording career.
After being drafted in the Army for two years, J. P. Richardson, Jr. went into the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous on-air period as a disc jockey. From April 29 to May 4, 1957 (a total of more than 122 hours), he played a mind-boggling 1,821 songs, ending with “Cattle Call” by Dinah Shore.
The first 45 released by the Big Bopper – actually a pair of instrumental recordings credited to Wortham Watts (the two men co-wrote the songs) – came out on D Records: “Cotton Picker” b/w “Lonesome”. Shortly afterwards, “Beggar to a King” b/w “Crazy Blues” came out on Mercury/Starday Records.
In June 1958, the Big Bopper was going to record a new song called “Purple People Eater Meets Witch Doctor”, featuring two characters from popular novelty songs of the day: the David Seville song “Witch Doctor” that was mentioned already, and the Sheb Wooley hit “The Purple People Eater” about the “one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater” who wants to be a “singer in a rock and roll band”. (Both of these characters used sped-up vocals in the songs).
Remarkably, the Big Bopper wrote “Chantilly Lace” while on the way to the Gold Star Studio in Houston; he had originally intended it to be the “B” side for “Purple People Eater Meets Witch Doctor”, but “Chantilly Lace” was on the charts for 22 weeks and topped out at #6 . For shows like American Bandstand – where the performers lip-synch to their records – the Big Bopper had a hard time matching his improvised speaking parts and inflections.
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Near the end of 1958, the Big Bopper decided to film three of his hit songs at a local nightclub: “Chantilly Lace”, “Big Bopper’s Wedding” and “Little Red Riding Hood” (not the same song as the Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs hit, “Li’l Red Riding Hood”).
On January 24, 1959, the Big Bopper gave a visionary interview to Disc magazine in England. He mentioned that these songs that he filmed should be recorded on “video tape” – similar to the tape used in recording studios for audio recordings. He also thought that jukeboxes should have a television screen to show tapes like these for viewing. He even spoke of a “video attachment” for home television sets that could not only play video tapes like these, but could also be used to record favorite television programs. All this more than 50 years ago!
Just 10 days later, the Big Bopper was gone. A briefcase was found in the wreckage that contained lyrics for 20 songs that he was working on. His friend Elvis Presley sent a note of condolence and a guitar-shaped arrangement of yellow roses for the funeral procession.
Besides his own wonderful recordings, the legacy of the Big Bopper includes several other songs written by him. The best known is “White Lightning”, a song that was recorded by his life-long friend George Jones and released less than one week after the plane crash; it became Jones’ first #1 country single.
J. P. Richardson, Jr. offered one of his songs, “Running Bear” to another friend, Johnny Preston after hearing him perform at a local club. The song concerns a doomed romance between an Indian brave named Running Bear and an Indian maid named White Dove, who each come from warring tribes, much like the story of Romeo and Juliet. The song was recorded in 1958 and features the Big Bopper, George Jones and Bill Hall performing Indian chanting and Indian war cries. In January 1960, the song reached the top of the singles charts in both the U.S. and the U.K.
In time, the Big Bopper’s son, Jay Perry Richardson learned of his father’s career. He sounded and looked a lot like his famous father, so he began recording and touring as a tribute to his father under the name the Big Bopper, Jr. Jay Perry Richardson is now in the process of recruiting other musicians to provide music for the Big Bopper’s final songs and release them in a series of albums; a concert was also planned on the 55th anniversary of the airplane crash on February 3, 2014.
(June 2013/1)
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Items: The Big Bopper
