It was February 2, 1959, and the Winter Dance Party tour had been one long cold disaster for the performers.
It was so cold on the tour bus that drummer Carl Brunch had a case of frostbite in his feet so bad that he was hospitalized in Clear Lake.
Rock & roll pioneer Buddy Holly didn’t really want to be on the tour but he also didn’t want to file for bankruptcy. Even so, after their bus broke down in sub-zero temperatures following a performance in Wisconsin, he’d had enough of the frigid bus trips and was not about to make another one up to Moorhead, Minnesota after the gig in Clear Lake. Instead, he hired a 21-year old pilot to fly him to Moorhead in a 4-passenger plane after the show that night at The Surf.
That flight ended around 1 a.m. on February 3, when the plane crashed just north of Clear Lake, killing the pilot and all three passengers aboard.
It seems bizarre to us now, perhaps. After all, many of us who have had to travel in bad weather over the years have stories of how we took a pass on flying in extreme winter weather in favor of taking a bus or renting a car. Not in a million years would we get on a small prop plane and take off in a blizzard, rather than travel on a road. That Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson got on that plane instead of the tour bus says about all we need to know about the tour.
Then again, the refurbished school buses that the promoters were using for the tour weren’t exactly safe, either. Reports were that, by the time the tour reached Clear Lake, the tour had gone through four different buses and were then on bus number five.
To top it all off, there never should have been a Surf Ballroom stop on the Winter Dance Party tour. February 2 was supposed to be a day off for the performers, but the promoters added the Clear Lake stop at the last minute. They had a gig scheduled for the very next night in Moorhead, nearly 400 miles north Clear Lake.
Notwithstanding the famous refrain from Don McLean’s 1971 anthem “American Pie,” the music didn’t really die along with the victims of that crash 60 years ago. In fact, other performers on that tour went on to do their parts in keeping the music alive. Not only did Dion and the Belmonts do their part, but the guy who was playing bass in Holly’s backup band (his original Crickets were no longer touring with their front man) was Waylon Jennings.
Jennings, of course, went on to have a pretty successful career for himself, though not so much known as a rock & roller. It’s a career that almost never was.
Originally, Holly was supposed to be joined on the ill-fated flight by Jennings and Holly’s backup band guitarist, Tommy Allsup. But the Big Bopper hadn’t been feeling well and Jennings gave up his spot on the plane. Then Allsup and Valens decided to flip a coin for the last seat on the plane. 17-year-old Southern Californian Valens “won” the coin toss and the rest is rock & roll history.
According to Jennings, after Holly was told his bassist had given up his plane seat, Holly grinned and said, “Well, I hope your damned bus freezes up again.”
Jennings response, which he claimed haunted him the rest of his life: “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.”
If you’ve never been to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, I highly recommend it. I admit that I haven’t been there since I was a high school kid and went to a concert/dance at the Surf during the summer of 1973, but from everything I’ve heard, they’ve done a remarkable job of keeping the place up. You can take tours most days and they still schedule concerts throughout the year, including an annual Winter Dance Party, honoring Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper.
