50 YEARS AGO TODAY...(Edited)

Charles Hardin Holley passed from this life at the ripe old age of 22. "The Big Bopper," and Richie Valens went on with him.

I realized that I didn't make any personal comments on the original post, so...

I was but a "bun in the oven" when Buddy died, having been conceived on New Year's Eve, 1958 in stinkin' New Orleans (according to Momma...who is never wrong). But growing up, I always enjoyed his music.

Many speculate that had he lived he would have been bigger than Elvis. And it is quite possible. Buddy was a real song-writer, and had a "geekiness" that most common men could relate to. He wasn't handsome, sexy, or "bigger than life" like Elvis...even "Eugene" could identify with him. He had an appeal to both black and white, rural and urban kids that was very similar.

Even if he was a Texan, I still like him...and his music.

It makes me ponder when I realize that I have one son 6 years older, and another 4 years older than Buddy was when he died. Man, these almost 50 years have gotten by fast...

From his Wickedpedia bio:

Holly began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. After a performance in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Riverside Ballroom, on 1 February the tour moved on to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on 2 February 1959. Afterwards, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota, enroute to play the next leg of the Winter Dance Party tour at the Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carl Bunch missed the flight as he had been hospitalized with frostbite three days earlier.^[9] The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he was recovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens was still signing autographs at the concert site when Allsup walked in and told him it was time to go. Valens begged for a seat on the plane. Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat. Allsup lost.

The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:05 A.M., but crashed a few minutes later. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles (13 km) from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson.

Waylon was spared death that day. You'd think he'd have taken better care of himself after that.

In memory, and tribute...I think this is my favorite...