The difference between life and death teeters on fragility, especially for the young. A coin toss. A faulty heater. The flu. The cost of a ticket. They sound so innocent, but they were the fates that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper, on February 3, 1959.
Buddy Holly was the lead act of the Winter Dance Party Tour, a grueling 24-city, 21-day trek across the wintry Midwest.
He got fed up with heating issues on the tour bus so he hired a private plane to shuttle some musicians from Clear Lake, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota.
He boarded, but there was only room for two others on the plane. Dion passed. He didn’t want to pay the $36. Waylon Jennings, part of Holly’s new band, gave up his seat to The Big Bopper because he had the flu. Valens flipped a coin for the seat with musician Tommy Allsup. He called heads, it was heads. Valens lost.
The plane crashed in a snowstorm not long after taking off. The wreckage was discovered the next day. The crash was blamed on pilot error.
“Peggy Sue” became one of Holly’s most popular tunes. Holly’s drummer in the Crickets, Jerry Allison, producer Norman Petty and Holly wrote the song. Holly recorded it in 1957.
Peggy Sue was a real person. She was a high school classmate of Holly's and Allison’s future girlfriend. The song originally was called “Cindy Lou,” a combination of Holly’s niece’s first name and his sister’s last. Jerry Allison talked him in to changing it to “Peggy Sue” to help gain her heart. It worked. They soon married.
The song reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
