Buddy Holly Part II

Buddy was eager to do more with his talents, and his songs were doing well in the charts.  He was happy in his marriage.  1n 1959, he set off on a winter “Dance Party” tour, playing all over the country.  Because his tour bus was unheated and had broken down, he decided to charter a small plane, to fly to the next gig, because of the cold on the bus and because he and others wanted to get to their next gig and have time to have their stage clothes cleaned.  
Waylon Jennings agreed to give up his seat to the Big Bopper who was travelling with Buddy - because the Bopper had the flu.    Richie Valens and Tommy Allsup, the guitar player, flipped a coin for a seat on the plane and Valens won the toss….

 But the weather was bad and the pilot was not qualified to fly on instruments only.  They crashed shortly after take-off, and all 4 – Buddy, Valens, the Big Bopper and the pilot were killed.  He is buried in Lubbock, Texas.  

Buddy had a sweet voice and a singing style that used falsetto.  In spite of the shortness of his career, he was a major influence on rock and roll.  The Beatles were big fans.  But to me, he always seems to belong very much to the 1950s America....He is memorialised in Don Mclean’s song American Pie, which refers to the “day the Music died…”