Rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, along with pilot Roger Peterson, were killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashed in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flightheaded for Moorhead, Minnesota.
Investigators blamed the crash on bad weather and pilot error.
Holly and his band, the Crickets, had just scored a No. 1 hit with “That’ll Be the Day.”
After mechanical difficulties with the tour bus, Holly had chartered a plane for his band to fly between stops on the Winter Dance Party Tour. However, Richardson, who had the flu, convinced Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings to give up his seat, and Ritchie Valens won a coin toss for another seat on the plane.
Singer Don McLean (above) memorialized Holly, Valens and Richardson in the 1972 No. 1 hit “American Pie,” which refers to February 3, 1959 as “the day the music died.”
Holly’s headstone in the City of Lubbock Cemetery.
Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has written and recorded ten singles that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
(FOX NEWS) – Garth Hudson, the last surviving member of Canadian-American rock group The Band, died in his sleep this morning. He was 87.
His death was confirmed Tuesday by The Canadian Press, which cited Hudson’s friend, Jan Haust. Additional details were not immediately available. Hudson had been living in a nursing home in Woodstock, upstate New York.
Garth Hudson made his most recent public appearance on April 16, 2023, performing in Kingston, New York.
Elvis Presley at 2 years old with his parents in the year 1937.
Singer/actor Elvis Aaron Presley, known as the “King of Rock and Roll,” was born in Tupelo, Mississippi; his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13.