The Day the Music Died

On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and "The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as "The Day the Music Died" after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song "American Pie".

At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the "Winter Dance Party" tour across the American Midwest. Rising artists Valens, Richardson, Frankie Sardo and vocal group Dion and the Belmonts had joined the tour as well. The long journeys between venues in poorly heated tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite.

After performing in Clear Lake, and frustrated by the conditions on the tour buses, Holly chose to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, suffering from the flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss. Shortly after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which crashed into a field, killing all four on board.

The event has since been mentioned or referenced in various media. Various monuments have been erected at the crash site and in Clear Lake, where an annual memorial concert is held at the Surf Ballroom, the venue that hosted the artists' last performances.

Background

Early in 1957, Buddy Holly was dropped by Decca Records after his singles sold poorly. He then moved back to Lubbock, Texas, and started a new band with drummer Jerry Allison and guitarist Niki Sullivan. Holly and his new band, The Crickets, started recording with producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico. Petty signed the group to Coral Records, Holly as a soloist and The Crickets as a band. By the end of 1957, the group was enjoying success: Holly's solo release "Peggy Sue" sold one million copies by December, while the same month the band made their first televised appearance on The Arthur Murray Party. Holly and the Crickets started 1958 with a tour through the north-eastern United States in January, followed by an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and a week-long tour of Australia. The band then toured England for fifteen days in March.

By that summer after the end of his latest tour, Holly married María Elena Santiago. Following their honeymoon, they settled in New York City. Holly would then return to Clovis for his recordings, and in September 1958 he produced a single for KLLL DJ Waylon Jennings. As he toured, Holly's interests expanded to the business side of his career: he considered that moving full-time to New York City would bring him closer to his label, his publisher, and the major tour booking agencies. Meanwhile, the singer grew unhappy with the management of Petty, who opposed Holly and the Crickets appearing on Hollywood magazine promotions and the popular rock-and-roll movies of the time. Additionally, Petty controlled the finances of Holly and the Crickets and all of their expenditures were paid by him upon approval. María Elena Holly later stated: "any money you got had to go through Norman".

After their performance with Holly on American Bandstand, The Crickets flew on their own to New Mexico to finish their business dealings with Petty. The band members were not fully convinced to move to New York City, and Petty persuaded them to keep him as their manager. As the band communicated their decision to Holly, the singer let them retain the name and he continued as a soloist. Holly desired to stop touring, but while he was easily released from his management contract, he had to hire attorney Harold Orenstein to dispute the control of his royalties with an unresponsive Petty, who had full access to the funds.

While the contest with Petty paralyzed Holly's plan to build his own studio in Lubbock to produce new artists, he took classes at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and he worked in his physique and personal image to shift the focus of his career. In need of money, Holly turned to promoter Irving Feld, who convinced him to join on a package tour of the ballrooms of the Upper Midwest organized by the General Amusement Corporation. Holly then assembled a band consisting of Jennings (bass), Tommy Allsup (guitar) and Carl Bunch (drums), with the opening vocals of Frankie Sardo. Despite the agreement with his former band, the tour's publicity agency often billed Holly's new backup band as the Crickets.

Headlining the tour with Holly was J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, whose single "Chantilly Lace" peaked at number 3 on November 3, 1958. The success of the song led Richardson to quit his job as a DJ for KTRM in Beaumont, Texas, to dedicate himself to performing and touring full-time. Richardson had appeared twice on The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show.

The Winter Dance Party also included Ritchie Valens, who had a double hit with his single "Donna" and its flipside, "La Bamba", which reached number 2 and number 22 on the Billboard Hot Singles chart, respectively. Valens had recently appeared on American Bandstand and NBC's The Music Shop to perform "Donna" and "La Bamba", and had filmed a small part in the rock-and-roll movie Go, Johnny, Go!.

The fourth act billed in the package show was Dion and the Belmonts: The band had originally been on tour with Holly for three weeks in late 1958 on the Biggest Show of Stars, during which they befriended the singer. That year, they appeared in American Bandstand singing "I Wonder Why", and they later were signed to appear on the Winter Dance Party.

Crash

Jerry Dwyer helped Peterson prepare the Bonanza with tail number N3794N for the flight. The weather at the time of departure was reported to be light snow, with a ceiling of 3000 ft AMSL with sky obscured, visibility 6 mi and winds from 20 to 30 mph. The flight took off at 00:55 (12:55 am) CST on Tuesday, February 3, from runway 17 (present-day runway 18). Peterson received a weather report that worsened since his last at 11:55 pm: wind blowing from the South at 20 mph with gusts of over 30 mph, a ceiling of 3000 ft, dropping pressure, a visibility of 6 mi, a temperature of 18 F and a dew point of 11. Peterson was not given the two advisories for the region: low visibility due to fog and snow for Iowa and heavy snow for North Dakota. Shortly after takeoff, Peterson stated that he would declare his flight plan over the radio.

Dwyer watched the southbound take-off from a platform outside the control tower. He was able to clearly see the aircraft's tail light for most of the brief flight, which started with an initial 180 degree left turn to pass east of the airport, climbing to approximately 800 ft AGL. After an additional left turn to a northwesterly heading, the tail light was observed gradually descending until it disappeared. Two minutes after take-off in the control tower, Dwyer believed he saw the plane go down, but the other flight controller chalked it up to an optical illusion. After the pilot failed to radio in his flight plan, Dwyer became concerned. At his request, the radio operator tried to contact Peterson, to no response.

The Bonanza had impacted the terrain at high speed, on a steep right bank in a nose-down attitude of 315°. The right-wing tip struck the ground first, and parts of the aircraft were spread across the frozen field for a distance of 540 ft, before the main wreckage came to rest against a wire fence. When the weather cleared in the morning, Dwyer took off on a plane to find the Bonanza by air, at about 9:15 am, while he asked his friend Bob Booe to assist him on the ground. Soon after becoming airborne, at 9:35 am, he noticed the wreckage at a short distance on a field belonging to Albert Juhl.

Dwyer then radioed the sheriff's office that dispatched deputy Bill McGill to the farm. McGill found the wreck and soon thereafter, the scene of the crash was crowded by local police, highway patrol and photographers. The left wing was still attached to the wreckage. The body of Peterson was trapped in the mangled cockpit, and only one of his boots was visible pointing to the sky. The body of Valens was found 17 ft south of the wreck: dressed in a black wool overcoat and suit, the left leg of the suit was split to the hip and his face facing the south. Holly's body, clothed with a yellow leather jacket split in the back from the force of the impact, was lying close to Valens' facing the south-west. Meanwhile, Richardson's body had been thrown 40 ft from the wreckage to an empty cornfield on the neighboring Moffett farm, lying partially on his right side facing the south.