Sixty years ago today, on February 3,1959, Buddy Holly’s bass player Waylon Jennings uttered seven words that would haunt him for the rest of his life. His band — The Crickets, led by
Alexandra Pollard
February 3 2019 6:30 PM
Sixty years ago today, on February 3,1959, Buddy Holly’s bass player Waylon Jennings uttered seven words that would haunt him for the rest of his life. His band — The Crickets, led by rock’n’roll wunderkind Holly — had just played a rollicking show in Iowa as part of their Winter Dance Party tour.
«Even though it was a Monday night,» Jennings later said, «it seemed like half the town’s teenagers had turned out.»
But Holly was fed up. Tired of the cold malfunctioning tour bus, and desperate to avoid the 400-mile drive to their next stop, he booked a private plane to Minnesota instead. Jennings was supposed to join him, but at the last minute gave his seat to The Big Bopper, who was on the same tour and suffering from a bad case of the flu. When Holly found out, he was teasingly aggrieved. «I hope your damned bus freezes up again,» he joked to his friend. «Well,» shot back Jennings, «I hope your ol’ plane crashes.»
That «ol’ plane» did crash, just a few minutes after it took off. On board were three musicians — 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 17-year-old Ritchie Valens (who won his seat on a coin toss), and 28-year-old JP Richardson Jr (The Big Bopper), as well as the pilot, 21-year-old Roger Peterson.
