The Day the Music Died
On 3rd Feb 1959, Buddy Holly (22 years old), the Big Bopper (28), and Ritchie Valens (17), died in a plane crash
shortly after takeoff from Clear Lake, Iowa along with the pilot. All three were traveling to Fargo, North Dakota, for
the next show on their Winter Dance Party Tour and Holly had hired the plane after heating problems developed
on his tour bus.
The Tour was planned to cover 24 cities in just three weeks and Holly was the biggest headliner. Before the tour
Waylon Jennings, and Tommy Allsup joined the tour as backup musicians. Ritchie Valens, was probably the
hottest of the artists at the time, The Big Bopper, and Dion and the Belmonts made up the list of other performers.
The exhausting tour schedule had taken the acts to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa the previous night and
due to mechanical difficulties with the bus the group arrived at Surf Ballroom less than two hours before the
performance. Fed up with the chartered bus with its faulty heater Valens rented a chartered plane to fly him to his
next destination in Moorhead, Minnesota.
The group got ready to travel to their next show on the tour bus after the performance. Holly boarded the 1947
Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft to Fargo, North Dakota, the nearest airport to Moorhead. Two other members of the
group had the option to fly with him at $36 per person.
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OUR VALLEY SANTA CLARITA