When Tom’s alarm went off at 6:00am on Thursday February 3, 2002, the room was infused with the sound of ‘I Got You Babe’ by Sonny and Cher. I knew we hadn’t left Woodstock, Illinois yet, but I wondered to myself: “Was it still Groundhog Day?” Had I stood in the footsteps of Phil Connors so much that I became trapped in his endless time loop? When the duo’s signature song ended, I thought to myself: “Okay campers, rise and shine and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cold out there.” But instead of the innocent and light-hearted celebration of Groundhog Day, I was slapped in the resin face with the reality of what February 3rd truly was – The Day the Music Died.
At 1:00am, while my companions were fast asleep, I envisioned the four-seat, single-engine Beechcraft 35 Bonanza as its right wing made contact with the frozen clay of a harvested cornfield just north of Clear Lake, Iowa. It was as though I heard the sound of crumpled metal and loud thuds as the small plane cartwheeled over and over for roughly 570 feet before it came to rest against a barbed-wire fence at the edge of Albert Juhl’s stubble field. Total silence followed; broken only by the bark of a distant dog. The lifeless bodies of the three singers laid in prone positions outside of the mangled fuselage. Ritchie Valens’ body was 17 feet south of the wreckage; Buddy Holly laid 17 feet to the southwest. Forty feet away, in the dark and lonely adjacent field northwest of the plane was where J.P. Richardson’s body was tossed like a child’s toy. All three performers were killed upon impact; their voices forever silenced. For pilot Roger Peterson – his body remained strapped in his seat, tangled in the wreckage with only his legs barely visible within the twisted carnage. At 9:35am, some eight-and-a-half hours after their plane went down, Dwyer Flying Service owner Jerry Dwyer, who also owned the ill-fated Beechcraft Bonanza, spotted the wreckage from his own plane as he followed Peterson’s flight path and he alerted the authorities. The rest, as they say, is Rock and Roll history.
The three of us boarded the Jeep at roughly 7:45am; the morning air was crisp with the temperature hovering near zero. Before we left Woodstock, Tom captured a few final images of the Cherry Street Inn and Woodstock Square. I couldn’t believe how cold it was; although it was better than the blizzard I stood in when we were in Colorado last October. As we headed out of the tiny hamlet that played the role of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in the movie ‘Groundhog Day’, I was sad. Woodstock is one of my favorite cities I’ve ever visited – even though there wasn’t a single Presidential site to be found.
During the next four-plus hours, the three of us safely completed our 260-mile trek to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which was located in the northwestern part of the state. While my companions had heard reports that Michigan was feeling the effects from Winter Storm Landon, the weather couldn’t have been better in Wisconsin – although I wouldn’t have minded it a tad warmer. I had to laugh to myself as I listened to the music Tom and Vic played during the trip; all I heard were tunes that were popular when Dwight Eisenhower was President. But there was a good reason for their choice of 50s hits – we had begun our own version of the Winter Dance Party tour and my companions wanted to hear songs recorded by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Dion and the Belmonts, and The Big Bopper.
At roughly 12:45pm, we arrived at our first site in Eau Claire. When Vicki pulled our Jeep into the parking lot, I thought I heard Tom tell his wife we were at the spot where the Winter Dance Party entertainers had performed on January 26, 1959. However, when my photographer removed me from the camera case, all I saw was a large parking lot near the county’s government center. It turned out Fournier’s Ballroom, which had been constructed around 1900 and was the building where Buddy and the rest of the guys had performed on their ill-fated tour, was torn down in 1971. Since there was no Fournier’s Ballroom, I was forced to stand in a snowbank alongside a historic marker.
Our brief visit to the Fournier’s Ballroom site had finished and we drove across the Chippewa River into the downtown section of Eau Claire. After my companions had wasted a half-hour browsing a high-end antique store called Antique Emporium, we checked in at the Lismore Hotel. Once Tom and Vicki had their belongings lugged into the hotel and up to our third-floor room, I couldn’t believe my resin eyes. The view from our corner room was spectacular. The stunning panorama also offered a glimpse of the Pablo Center at the Confluence, which was only a block from our room and was the venue for our 7:30pm concert.
For lunch, the three of us walked to an eatery called The District Pub and Grill, which was located across the street from the Pablo Center. Following the feedbag of pretzel fries, a burger, patty melt, and beer, we headed back to the Lismore. However, for some reason, my companions took a different route on the return trip. That change in direction turned out to be a godsend for my photographer as Tom and Vicki discovered Revival Records along South Barstow Street – which was nearly in the shadow of our hotel. I had to admit, Revival Records was one of the most impressive record stores I’d ever visited. I knew my photographer was impressed as well, especially when he found a first pressing of the 1988 LP ‘Smashes, Thrashes & Hits’ by his favorite band KISS. Finally, when we returned to our room around four o’clock, Tom placed me on the room’s window ledge where I watched the world go by. At the same time, my companions took a short nap before their highly anticipated show.
By six o’clock, Tom and Vic had begun to get ready for the show; a half hour later, we made our way to the Pablo Center on foot. Even though I was in the camera case, I could tell the night air was cold – the resin boogers in my nose were frozen. For Vicki, the show was just a regular concert; only this show featured songs from the 1950s sung by a tribute band. But to my photographer, this was a pilgrimage to pay homage to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper on the day they died. The concert was called “John Mueller’s Winter Dance Party” and featured Mueller as Buddy Holly; Ray Anthony who portrayed Ritchie Valens; and Linwood Sasser as the leopard print, larger-than-life Big Bopper.
Our seats were great – right up next to the stage. Tom set me on the stage where I posed for a photo only minutes before the show started. I was surprised to see the auditorium was a little over half full. And most of the people in attendance looked older than my two travel mates, which explained the lack of singing, dancing, and bopping once the show started. In 1959, during the original Winter Dance Party shows, the teenagers in the sold-out ballrooms danced the night away. At the Pablo Center during our show, the crowd seemed ‘high’ on either Geritol or Ben Gay and their walkers got in the way of any dancing. As a matter of fact, a couple of the people in the audience were so old they actually saw Buddy Holly perform at Fournier’s Ballroom in 1959.
During the original Winter Dance Party shows in ’59, Frankie Sardo started out with a song or two and was followed to the stage by The Big Bopper, who performed a handful of novelty tunes including his hit ‘Chantilly Lace’. Ritchie Valens got the kids rocking with ‘Come On, Let’s Go’ and ‘La Bamba’, and he brought tenderness to the ballrooms with his ballad ‘Donna’. Next to hit the stage was Dion and the Belmonts, who got their start in 1957 and were one of the biggest Rock and Roll acts in America. They thrilled the audiences with about ten songs, including their hits ‘Teen Angle’ and ‘I Wonder Why’. But the headliner; the performer everyone came to see in person; was Buddy Holly. The superstar from Lubbock, Texas played the same 11-song set in every show – he began with ‘Gotta Travel On’ and ended with ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man’. But sandwiched in between those tunes, Holly rocked the ballrooms with some of the biggest hits in Rock and Roll history, including ‘That’ll Be the Day’, ‘Peggy Sue’, ‘Oh Boy’, ‘Everyday’, ‘It’s So Easy’ and ‘Rave On’. Usually, the dance party ended with Valens returning to the stage to play an encore of ‘La Bamba’, which had just been released a couple of months before the tour began and was a crowd favorite.
For over two hours, Sasser, Anthony, and Mueller rocked the Pablo Center with hit after hit. There were times, when I closed my painted resin eyes, I thought the three deceased stars had returned to Eau Claire to make one final curtain call. While all three entertainers resembled the original stars in appearance, their renditions of the tunes were uncannily accurate. But there was one song performed by Mueller, however, that stole the show – at least in my opinion. It was a touching ballad called ‘Hey Buddy’ where Mueller not only paid his personal tribute to Buddy Holly, he also had penned a couple of stanzas dedicated to Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper as well.
In the waning moments of the show, when Mueller, Anthony, and Sasser all took the stage for the final two songs, The Big Bopper delivered the bad news; and I could tell my photographer was disappointed. Sasser said: “The three of us love to meet the audience after our shows and we had planned on doing that after this one. But unfortunately, we’ve just been advised that might not be a great idea tonight. We’re very sorry and we hope you understand.”
Although I had wanted to be photographed in the hands of John Mueller and I knew Tom had hoped to get a photo or poster signed by the three headliners, the decision was understandable. In my opinion, we were lucky the show hadn’t been cancelled altogether, which was certainly a possibility due to the fact the Omicron variant had been rampant since early December.
When the amazing show had finished, the three of us left the Pablo Center for the short walk back to the Lismore Hotel. At one point, I felt a blast of cold air as it rushed through an opening in the camera case – the temperature was near zero and resin goose bumps popped up all over my body. During that fleeting moment, I couldn’t help but think about the cold bus rides endured by the entertainers during the original Winter Dance Party tour in 1959. I was uncomfortable and it was only a ten-minute walk to the hotel. No wonder the performers dubbed it “The Tour from Hell” and Buddy Holly chartered the flight after the Surf Ballroom show.
Throughout the night, as I stood alone on the window ledge of our hotel room, I thought about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper and their music I had enjoyed earlier in the evening. I also had images of the plane wreckage that popped into my resin mind as well – images where I saw the three bodies lying near the mangled fuselage on the frozen Iowa cornfield. Over the years, February 3, 1959 has been dubbed ‘The Day the Music Died’ and it was one of the saddest days in Rock and Roll history. But 63 years later, on February 3, 2022, the music had come back to life. And more importantly, at least to my photographer and me, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were resurrected on that stage as well. Thanks to John Mueller, Ray Anthony, Linwood Sasser, and their four backing musicians, the three of us had a chance to experience “The Winter Dance Party Tour” – and oh boy, what a night it was!
