The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens

by Larry Lehmer

Overview

The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the 'Big Bopper' and Ritchie Valens. The tragic deaths of these three fifties Rock n Roll stars was immortalised in Don McLean's classic hit American Pie. The poignant story of the build-up to, events of, and the fall-out from the infamous 'Day The Music Died' are told here in painstaking chronological detail. A must for any serious rock n roll fan or student.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857127518
Publisher:	Schirmer Trade Books
Publication date:	03/07/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	8 MB

Table of Contents

	Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
1	The Crash	1
	Coming Together
2	Big Beat from Texas	5
3	The Big Bopper	26
4	Getting Ready	37
5	La Bamba	48
	The Winter Dance Party
6	The Tour Begins	61
7	The Tour Goes Bad	75
8	The Tour from Hell	88
9	The Flight	99
	Aftermath
10	A Star Is Born	115
11	New Directions	128
12	The CAB Report	135
13	The Controversy	142
14	Legacies	155
15	Family Affairs	178
16	The Fans	189
17	Where Are They Now?	199
18	The Last Tour	224
Appendix A	The Plane	233
Appendix B	Roger Peterson's Flying Career	239
	Notes and References	245
	Bibliography	251
	Index	257

Editorial Reviews

After two decades of research, Iowa journalist Lehmer has assembled a sometimes lively, often obsessively trivial history of the tour that culminated in the deaths of three rock 'n' roll pioneers on February 3, 1959.

Lehmer is best when detailing the backgrounds of the three stars and how they came to be on the Winter Dance Party tour. J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. the Big Bopper, was a 28-year-old Texas DJ who held the world's record for continuous time on the air (122 hours, 8 minutes) and had struck gold as a singer with "Chantilly Lace." Ritchie Valens, 17, was the first Latino rocker to achieve national success, with the single "Donna." Buddy Holly, 22, was already a major star with a string of hits. Because of conflicts with his manager, Holly was temporarily broke, so he agreed to headline the tour. Lehmer has interviewed musicians who were on the tour (including Waylon Jennings, who played bass for Holly), family members, promoters, and fans who attended the shows. He establishes that while teens were thrilled by the performances, the musicians were miserable, because their tour bus was comfortless and frequently heatless in the subzero weather. To escape another sleepless night, Holly and the others decided to charter a tiny three-passenger plane after their show in Clear Lake, Iowa. Lehmer devotes much attention to their pilot, Roger Peterson, and to the circumstances of the crash, about which he tries to drum up ominous mysteries. The official investigation reasonably cites bad weather and Peterson's unfamiliarity with the instrument panel, but Lehmer entertains the absurd theory that Holly may have shot Peterson. Exhaustive follow-up material details the legacies of the three stars and what's become of their families, associates, and royalties.

Ultimately, it was just a rotten bus tour and a bad-luck accident; even devoted fans may find their attention here waning.

Kirkus Reviews