By now, most of the people who were lucky enough to experience a Buddy Holly concert are just about all dead and gone. For those who know anything at all about him, he was a musical genius and an innovator. He was the first major star to produce his own records, the first to use overdubbing, the first to use his own instruments on a song so that the finished product fairly represented his initial vision.
These are things that today's artist takes for granted but whether or not they know it, they have Buddy Holly to thank for the license to be able to create music they way they want to. He had only been around a few years so hadn't put out a large volume of material. What had made him so immensely popular and one of the brightest stars of the young Rock Era was his talent and potential. It is believed that had he lived, he would have rivaled Elvis in popularity. The difference was that Holly wrote his own music while Elvis did not, he was a talented guitar player, and he arranged and produced his own music. Plus, he didn't have a manager to hinder him the way Elvis did.
"The Day the Music Died" of course, is the term that Don McLean came up with in 1972 in his epic song "American Pie" to describe the huge loss that was felt on that wintry night in 1959. The music world not only lost this 22-year-old promising budding superstar but also 17-year-old Ritchie Valens and 28-year-old J.B. "The Big Bopper" Richardson on that fateful night. It has been called the first and greatest tragedy rock and roll has ever suffered.
The Winter Dance Party was a tour set up by Holly to earn money after his group the Crickets had disbanded. It covered twenty-four Midwestern cities in the United States in three weeks. This was a pretty full schedule and to complicate matters, the tour bus that was used to carry the musicians was not prepared for the winter cold--its heating system broke shortly after the tour began. Carl Bunch, the drummer Holly hired, developed frostbitten feet and had to be hospitalized in Ironwood, Michigan when the bus broke down en route to Appleton, Wisconsin. When they lost Bunch, Holly, Valens and Dion DiMucci (of Dion and the Belmonts) took turns playing drums for each other at the Green Bay, Wisconsin and Clear Lake, Iowa shows.
Clear Lake originally was not an intended stop on the tour but there was an open date and thus promoters set up the show for Monday, February 2. When the entourage rolled into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake that day, Holly was fed up with the tour bus. He told his remaining band members, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup, that they should try to charter a plane to save time and avoid the cold bus ride of 380 miles (610 km) to the next gig in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Holly contacted Roger Peterson, a 21-year-old local pilot of Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa. Dwyer would charge $36 per passenger to ride in the single-engine 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza 35 (V-tail). Richardson had developed the flu and asked Jennings for his seat on the plane. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going with them, he said in his usual joking way, "Well I hope your ol' bus freezes up". To this, Jennings responded, also in jest, "Well I hope your ol' plane crashes". This exchange haunted Jennings the rest of his life.
Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane before and despite being apprehensive, asked Allsup for his seat on the plane. Tommy replied "I'll flip ya' for the remaining seat." Allsup flipped the coin in a sidestage room shortly before the group left for the airport. Valens won the coin toss and thus had a seat on the flight.
Dion had been approached to join the flight, but decided he couldn't justify the $36 cost.
The plane left the ramp and taxied to then-Runway 17 at the Mason City Municipal Airport at about 12:55 A.M. Central Time on Tuesday, February 3. There was a light snowfall, with winds gusting to 30 knots and a cloud ceiling of 3,000 feet.
Hubert Dwyer, owner of the plane, watched as "the tail light of the aircraft gradually descended until it was out of site", just after 1:00 A.M. Peterson had told Dwyer he would file a flight plan with Air Traffic Control shortly after takeoff. When Peterson did not call tower personnel, Dwyer requested that they continue to try to establish radio contact, but all attempts were unsuccessful. When Hector Airport in Fargo, North Dakota had not heard from Peterson, Dwyer contacted authorities to report the aircraft missing.
About 9:15 A.M., Dwyer left in his private Cessna 180 to fly Peterson's intended route. Within minutes after takeoff, Dwyer spotted the wreckage less than six miles (9.7 km) northwest of the airport in a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl. The plane was at a slight downward angle and banked heavily to the right when it struck the ground at about 170 miles per hour (270 km per hour). The plane then skidded under 570 feet (170 meters) across the frozen Iowa landscape before the wreckage came to wrest against a wire fence at the edge of Juhl's property. The bodies of Holly and Valens lay near the plane, Richardson was thrown over the fence into the cornfield of Juhl's neighbor Oscar Moffett, while Peterson's body remained entangled inside the plane. Since the other musicians with The Winter Dance Party had already left, Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson, who drove the musicians to the airport, had to make positive identifications of the musicians. All four died instantly from "gross trauma" to the brain, according to county coroner Ralph Smiley.
Investigators found that the crash was due to the poor weather and pilot error, resulting in spatial disorientation. Peterson had not yet been certified for flight into weather that would require flying the aircraft based solely by reference to his instruments rather than using his own vision. The Civil Aeronautics Board noted in its final report that Peterson had trained on airplanes equipped with an artificial horizon altitude indicator and not with the one the Bonanza was equipped with. The two relevant instruments display aircraft pitch altitude but show the information in a visual manner opposite of one another. Thus, the board considered that this could have caused Peterson to think he was ascending when he was, in fact, descending.
In 1988, Ken Paquette, a fan of the early years of the Rock Era, erected a stainless steel monument depicting a steel guitar and a set of three records containing the names of each of the three performers. The monument is on private farmland, about one quarter mile west of the intersection of 315 Street and Gull Avenue, five miles (8 km) north of Clear Lake. A large plasma-cut steel set of Wayfarer-style glasses, similar to the ones Holly was famous for wearing, stands at the access point to the crash point. A similar monument was also created and unveiled outside the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the three played on February 1. In February of 2009, Paquette made a new memorial for pilot Peterson and unveiled it at the crash site. The road originating near the Surf Ballroom and extending north past the west of the crash site is called Buddy Holly Place.
Directions to Crash Site: From U.S. Highway 18, go north on North 8th Street in Clear Lake for 4.7 miles. When the paved road (which has turned into Grouse Avenue) turns to your left (west), take the gravel road (310th Street) to your right (east), then immediately left (north) on Gull Avenue. Follow Gull Avenue to the north for one-half mile, just past the grain bins to the first fence row on your left (west). Walk along the fence row towards the west for just under one-half mile. A small memorial is located at the place the plane came to rest. Four trees were also planted along the fence row in 1999, one for each performer and the pilot.
These are things that today's artist takes for granted but whether or not they know it, they have Buddy Holly to thank for the license to be able to create music they way they want to. He had only been around a few years so hadn't put out a large volume of material. What had made him so immensely popular and one of the brightest stars of the young Rock Era was his talent and potential. It is believed that had he lived, he would have rivaled Elvis in popularity. The difference was that Holly wrote his own music while Elvis did not, he was a talented guitar player, and he arranged and produced his own music. Plus, he didn't have a manager to hinder him the way Elvis did.
"The Day the Music Died" of course, is the term that Don McLean came up with in 1972 in his epic song "American Pie" to describe the huge loss that was felt on that wintry night in 1959. The music world not only lost this 22-year-old promising budding superstar but also 17-year-old Ritchie Valens and 28-year-old J.B. "The Big Bopper" Richardson on that fateful night. It has been called the first and greatest tragedy rock and roll has ever suffered.
The Winter Dance Party was a tour set up by Holly to earn money after his group the Crickets had disbanded. It covered twenty-four Midwestern cities in the United States in three weeks. This was a pretty full schedule and to complicate matters, the tour bus that was used to carry the musicians was not prepared for the winter cold--its heating system broke shortly after the tour began. Carl Bunch, the drummer Holly hired, developed frostbitten feet and had to be hospitalized in Ironwood, Michigan when the bus broke down en route to Appleton, Wisconsin. When they lost Bunch, Holly, Valens and Dion DiMucci (of Dion and the Belmonts) took turns playing drums for each other at the Green Bay, Wisconsin and Clear Lake, Iowa shows.
Clear Lake originally was not an intended stop on the tour but there was an open date and thus promoters set up the show for Monday, February 2. When the entourage rolled into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake that day, Holly was fed up with the tour bus. He told his remaining band members, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup, that they should try to charter a plane to save time and avoid the cold bus ride of 380 miles (610 km) to the next gig in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Holly contacted Roger Peterson, a 21-year-old local pilot of Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa. Dwyer would charge $36 per passenger to ride in the single-engine 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza 35 (V-tail). Richardson had developed the flu and asked Jennings for his seat on the plane. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going with them, he said in his usual joking way, "Well I hope your ol' bus freezes up". To this, Jennings responded, also in jest, "Well I hope your ol' plane crashes". This exchange haunted Jennings the rest of his life.
Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane before and despite being apprehensive, asked Allsup for his seat on the plane. Tommy replied "I'll flip ya' for the remaining seat." Allsup flipped the coin in a sidestage room shortly before the group left for the airport. Valens won the coin toss and thus had a seat on the flight.
Dion had been approached to join the flight, but decided he couldn't justify the $36 cost.
The plane left the ramp and taxied to then-Runway 17 at the Mason City Municipal Airport at about 12:55 A.M. Central Time on Tuesday, February 3. There was a light snowfall, with winds gusting to 30 knots and a cloud ceiling of 3,000 feet.
Hubert Dwyer, owner of the plane, watched as "the tail light of the aircraft gradually descended until it was out of site", just after 1:00 A.M. Peterson had told Dwyer he would file a flight plan with Air Traffic Control shortly after takeoff. When Peterson did not call tower personnel, Dwyer requested that they continue to try to establish radio contact, but all attempts were unsuccessful. When Hector Airport in Fargo, North Dakota had not heard from Peterson, Dwyer contacted authorities to report the aircraft missing.
About 9:15 A.M., Dwyer left in his private Cessna 180 to fly Peterson's intended route. Within minutes after takeoff, Dwyer spotted the wreckage less than six miles (9.7 km) northwest of the airport in a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl. The plane was at a slight downward angle and banked heavily to the right when it struck the ground at about 170 miles per hour (270 km per hour). The plane then skidded under 570 feet (170 meters) across the frozen Iowa landscape before the wreckage came to wrest against a wire fence at the edge of Juhl's property. The bodies of Holly and Valens lay near the plane, Richardson was thrown over the fence into the cornfield of Juhl's neighbor Oscar Moffett, while Peterson's body remained entangled inside the plane. Since the other musicians with The Winter Dance Party had already left, Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson, who drove the musicians to the airport, had to make positive identifications of the musicians. All four died instantly from "gross trauma" to the brain, according to county coroner Ralph Smiley.
Investigators found that the crash was due to the poor weather and pilot error, resulting in spatial disorientation. Peterson had not yet been certified for flight into weather that would require flying the aircraft based solely by reference to his instruments rather than using his own vision. The Civil Aeronautics Board noted in its final report that Peterson had trained on airplanes equipped with an artificial horizon altitude indicator and not with the one the Bonanza was equipped with. The two relevant instruments display aircraft pitch altitude but show the information in a visual manner opposite of one another. Thus, the board considered that this could have caused Peterson to think he was ascending when he was, in fact, descending.
Signpost near the Clear Lake crash site
Directions to Crash Site: From U.S. Highway 18, go north on North 8th Street in Clear Lake for 4.7 miles. When the paved road (which has turned into Grouse Avenue) turns to your left (west), take the gravel road (310th Street) to your right (east), then immediately left (north) on Gull Avenue. Follow Gull Avenue to the north for one-half mile, just past the grain bins to the first fence row on your left (west). Walk along the fence row towards the west for just under one-half mile. A small memorial is located at the place the plane came to rest. Four trees were also planted along the fence row in 1999, one for each performer and the pilot.
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