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)
At the top of the list of “might have been” in rock and roll has to be the crash on February 3, 1959 in an Iowa cornfield of a small airplane carrying three early rockers to their graves: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. The stories around this tragic event include those about several men who were not on the plane for one reason or another, most famously future country music star Waylon Jennings, who had recently joined Buddy Holly's band after the break-up of his previous band the Crickets. Also, Dion DiMucci (of Dion and the Belmonts) couldn’t afford the $36 cost, so he also decided not to board the plane.
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Buddy Holly split from both the Crickets and Norman Petty in the fall of 1958 and was thus free to pursue his new musical visions. Unfortunately, he got only a meager settlement when Norman Petty’s books were found to be in hopeless disarray – probably Petty took a big slice of the pie for himself, though there was no way to prove it.
With a new, pregnant wife, and short on money, Buddy Holly signed on for the “Winter Dance Party” package tour of the Midwest. It was during this tour that Holly was killed in the airplane crash in February 1959, along with Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper. and the pilot Roger Peterson. Buddy Holly was just 22 years old.
(June 2013/1)
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All three of the men who perished on the day the music died weren’t using their birth names – most obviously in the case of the Big Bopper. As suggested by his manager Bob Keane, Ritchie Valens (born, Anglicized, Richard Steven Valenzuela) got a “t” in his first name and shortened his surname in order to widen his appeal. As to Buddy Holly, “Buddy” could have just been a nickname, but “Holly” also didn’t match up exactly to his birth name Charles Hardin Holley (the dropped “e” was inadvertent, they say).
(August 2013)
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