February 3rd, 1959. That was the day that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. The Big Bopper, died in that tragic plane crash, in a field outside of Clear Lake, Iowa. As singer-songwriter Don McLean chronicled in the song ‘American Pie’, it was truly the Day the Music Died.
I don’t remember when this happened. I was too little to know about it. But my brother remembered very well. Larry loved Buddy Holly’s music. Also, he thought Buddy was cool, because they both wore horn-rimmed glasses. Those glasses were never a deal-breaker for girls, with Holly, nor Larry, either. So I listened early and often to Buddy Holly around the house.
Needless to say. all three of these artists left a large footprint on rock, pop, and country music. J.P Richardson had a hit with ‘Chantilly Lace’, plus wrote for other acts. In fact, ‘White Lightning’ was a huge hit for George Jones. Richie Valens had taken the charts by storm with ‘La Bamba’ and ‘Oh, Donna’. Buddy Holly’s ‘That’ll Be the Day’ was a huge number one song, along with many more top 20 tunes. Buddy had his own traveling band, the Crickets. The Crickets included over the years, Jerry Allison, Sonny Curtis, Tommy Allsup, and Waylon Jennings. It was these last two pickers and back-up singers, whose lives were forever changed by that fateful night.
According to multiple interviews over the years with Allsup and Jennings, Tommy Allsup lost a coin toss to Richie Valens, as to whether he would be allowed to fly to the next concert, or take the bus. Allsup saved that coin until his death three years ago., according to his son, who now has the coin. Oh, in case you were wondering, he called ‘heads up’ on the coin.
Waylon, meanwhile, dispensed with any 50/50 chances. He simply went ahead and offered his seat to J.P. Richardson, who was sick. He had a brief conversation with his friend and now-boss, Buddy Holly. From the Tennessean:
A young Waylon Jennings, playing bass in Holly’s backing band for the “Winter Dance
Courtesy YouTube
Party” tour that brutally zigzagged through upper Midwest cities, offered his seat on the plane to a sick Richardson.
The tour had been stranded on more than one occasion that winter and, before takeoff, Holly jestingly told Jennings he hoped the bus broke down. Jennings responded with “I hope your ol’ plane crashes.”
“I was so afraid for many years that somebody was going to find out I said that,” Jennings told CMT in 1999. “Somehow I blamed myself. Compounding that was the guilty feeling that I was still alive. I hadn’t contributed anything to the world at that time compared to Buddy.
“Why would he die and not me? It took a long time to figure that out, and it brought about some big changes in my life — the way I thought about things.”
No doubt, that crash, and some survivor’s guilt, haunted Waylon Jennings for the rest of his life and career.
