40: THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

We had spent over three days in Dyersville and on the morning of Friday July 24, 2015 it was time to head west. My photographer had planned on making one last trip out to the Field of Dreams before we left town, but he didn’t as he wanted to stay ahead of the weather. The forecast for our next destination, which was Clear Lake, Iowa, was possible heavy storms with a lot of rain.

A little over an hour into the drive, we hit a torrential thunderstorm near Waterloo, Iowa. It was so bad, in fact, that Vicki had contemplated pulling the Avenger off the road as the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the deluge of water. We got lucky and drove out of the storm within 20 minutes and we never saw another drop of rain for the remaining 90 miles to Clear Lake. As a matter of fact, the sky had turned pure blue by the time we rolled into town.

It was roughly 10:30am when we arrived at the historic Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The illustrious concert hall was made famous on the evening of February 2, 1959 when the “Winter Dance Party” tour played there. That tour consisted of head liners Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Dion and the Belmonts, The Big Bopper, and Frankie Sardo. Following their show, Holly, Valens and the Bopper were taken to nearby Mason City Municipal Airport where they boarded a four-seat 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane that was scheduled to fly the trio to Fargo, North Dakota. Roughly five minutes after takeoff, the plane that was piloted by 21-year-old Roger Peterson crashed into a frozen cornfield less than six miles northwest of the airport. All four passengers were killed.

I was in the camera case as my photographer carried me through the front doors of the Surf Ballroom. Once we opened the wooden interior double doors, it was as though we were transported back in time to 1959. It was too bad that I had a ponytail rather than a D.A.; but resin is impossible to comb.

Once we went into the actual ballroom, the enormous concert venue was fairly dark; although some smaller ceiling lights provided enough illumination for us to see the historic Surf stage. Tom carried me up the steps and onto the same stage where Buddy Holly sang some of his final songs. As we stood there and looked out at the darkened dance floor, it was as though I could hear Buddy as he sang ‘Rave On’; or Ritchie as he mesmerized the teens with ‘Donna’; or the Bopper as he said to the crowd: “Hellooooo Baby!”

During the four hour show on that cold February night, those young singers rocked the house; the people of Clear Lake had never seen that type of star power in their small town. Buddy Holly was 22 years old and was already a seasoned performer with hits such as ‘Peggy Sue’, ‘Oh Boy’, and ‘That’ll be the Day”. JP Richardson, known professionally as the Big Bopper, had just released his new hit ‘Chantilly Lace’. The Bopper, who was 28 years old, also had recordings such as ‘Big Bopper’s Wedding’ and ‘Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor’. The youngster of the trio, at 17, was Ritchie Valens. He was a rising star at the time of the “Winter Dance Party” tour and had nationwide hits with ‘Donna’, ‘La Bamba’, and ‘Come On, Let’s Go’.

After my photographer and I were finished on the stage, we walked through a doorway at the side of the stage and into a room that featured a mirror, two sinks, a couple of chairs, and a shelf; not to mention thousands of signatures on the wall. It turned out that the room was the Surf’s “Green Room”; a place where the entertainers could relax before going on stage. It was in that room, on the night of February 2, 1959, where Ritchie Valens won the coin toss with Tommy Allsup and won his seat on the ill-fated airplane.

When I was carried into that room, I could immediately envision Ritchie standing there signing autographs for dozens of fans when Tommy Allsup walked in. When Allsup agreed to leave his seat on the plane to the fate of a coin flip with Valens, the show’s M.C. Bob Hale flipped the fifty cent piece. It was as though I could hear Ritchie say “heads” as the coin rotated in the air; and when the coin ended up with Benjamin Franklin’s head showing, Valens said “that’s the first time I’ve ever won anything in my life.” My photographer did his best to recognize some of the thousands of signatures on the wall; he did find one familiar name: Waylon Jennings.

From that tiny dressing room, I was carried into another small area of the Surf Ballroom. There we saw an old coin operated telephone. But it wasn’t just any old telephone; it was the original pay phone that was at the Surf Ballroom on February 2, 1959. At one point during the four-hour show, Buddy Holly called his wife Maria Elena from that telephone. Mrs. Holly did not make the trip to the Midwest as she was pregnant with their first child and stayed back in New York City; a decision that she later regretted. That telephone conversation proved to be the last time Maria Elena ever spoke with Buddy. Another performer who had used that phone during the show was Ritchie Valens; the youngster had called Los Angeles and talked with his manager Bob Keane. As I was clutched in the left hand of my photographer, I stared at that telephone and imagined Buddy as he held the receiver next to his ear and spoke with his wife for the last time.

We took our time as we strolled around the famed ballroom; it was as though my photographer and his wife couldn’t get enough of the nostalgic atmosphere. After we visited the booths that were at the side of the stage, the three of us ventured into another area of the Surf that not only featured artifacts from famous acts who had performed there, the large room also had been turned into a shrine for the three deceased singers. As we looked at some of the personal belongings of Buddy, Ritchie, and the Bopper, it really brought the magnitude of the tragedy to life.

Once we were finished with our ‘Blast from the Past’ inside the Surf Ballroom, we went outside to capture images of the building’s exterior. The original Surf Ballroom burned down in 1947 and was replaced by this historic structure that has been in Clear Lake, Iowa since it opened on July 1, 1948. Nearly 11 years later, on the night of February 2, 1959, the “Winter Dance Party” tour that included recording stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and Dion and the Belmonts performed there. Tragedy struck when Holly, Valens, and the Bopper were killed an hour after their show.

From the Surf Ballroom, we drove the Avenger on the
same three-and-a-half-mile route that Surf manager Carroll Anderson had taken around 12:30am on February 3, 1959. After the show, Anderson drove Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper to the Mason City Municipal Airport for their intended flight to Fargo, North Dakota.

When we arrived at the small airport, my photographer did his best to get photos of an airplane, as well as one of the runways. It was runway 18 (number 17 in 1959) that pilot Roger Peterson took off from at 12:55am in a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza with the three singers on board. Five minutes later, the plane crashed and all four were killed.

Although we didn’t spend much time at the airport, while I was there, I thought of the three singers as they got out of Anderson’s car and walked to the waiting airplane. Ritchie and the Bopper got into the plane first, each occupied one of the two rear seats. Roger Peterson, the young 21-year-old pilot boarded the plane next and situated himself behind the controls of the aircraft. Buddy Holly shook the hand of Carroll Anderson, climbed on board the plane into the front passenger-side seat and the door was closed. As the plane taxied out to runway 17, snow blew across the concrete airstrip. While it was hard for me to imagine the weather conditions on that hot July afternoon, it wasn’t difficult for me to picture the four-seat Beechcraft as it lifted off into the night sky. Initially the plane headed south, then banked around to the left until it was flying towards the northwest. Carroll Anderson watched as the taillights of the small plane disappeared from sight at 1:00am.

My photographer slid his camera back into the case (I was in there too); the time had come for the three of us to head to the crash site. Although it was an eight-and-a-half-mile car ride to the site, the distance the plane had flown that fateful night was a little less than six miles. Upon our arrival at the entrance to the crash site, we saw a large pair of what resembled Buddy Holly’s black-framed glasses that were situated near the pathway.

With me situated securely inside the camera case, my photographer and his wife began the quarter mile walk along the cornfield’s path to the crash site. Just as we started our pilgrimage, a man and woman who had already been to the site mentioned that we would come across a lot of standing water in the pathway and that we would have to cut across the fence line and into the adjacent field to avoid the flooded area.

Once we arrived at the “lake” on the original pathway, which was likely caused by the rainstorm that we had encountered earlier in the day, we carefully navigated across the barbed-wire fence and around the water. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of the memorial to the “Winter Dance Party” plane crash. The memorial, which was created by Ken Paquette in 1989, was a stainless-steel guitar and a set of three stainless steel records that mark the exact spot where the plane had come to rest on February 3, 1959.

Standing at that site was a sobering experience for me; it was no different than when I stood on the spot where JFK was killed or where Lincoln had been shot. As we stood there, I could see from my opened camera case the approximate locations where the bodies of the singers were found lying following the crash. Ritchie Valens had been ejected from the plane and ended up 17-feet directly south of the wreckage. Another victim was found 17-feet southwest of the mangled plane; it was the body of Buddy Holly as he laid next to a brown, leather suitcase. In a picked cornfield, which was owned by Albert Juhl’s neighbor Oscar Moffett, the body of J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) was discovered 40 feet northwest of the wreckage.

The Big Bopper was the oldest of the three at 28; Buddy Holly was 22 when he was killed; and Ritchie Valens was just a kid at 17. Rock and Roll was in its infancy and three of its brightest stars had been snuffed out in an instant. February 3, 1959 truly could have been the day that rock and roll died.

During the 15 minutes that we were at the crash site, my photographer not only captured the images of the site that he had wanted; he ended our visit by playing a final tribute to the fallen musicians. Tom took out his phone and began the tribute with “Oh Boy” by Buddy Holly. That song was followed by Ritchie Valens’ “Donna”; and finally “Chantilly Lace” was played in remembrance of the Big Bopper. As we packed up our gear and headed along the fence line for the car, we left the site listening to Don McLean’s “American Pie”.

“I can’t remember if I cried, when I read about his widowed bride. Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died.”

All three of us were touched deeply by our stop in Clear Lake, Iowa. The visit to the Surf Ballroom and the plane crash site was something that none of us would likely ever forget.

The rest of that Friday was spent driving north into Minnesota where we had planned on getting into position for a weekend rendezvous with a shopping mall. Not just any mall, mind you, but the Mall of America. In an effort to avoid the terrible late afternoon traffic of Minneapolis, my photographer had decided to find a hotel in Minnetonka; one that he had stayed at on a previous work trip.

We arrived at the Holiday Inn around 4:00pm; which was early for us when we are on the road sightseeing. Since the Minneapolis area has been dubbed by my photographer as “the place where fun goes to die”, we simply hung out at the motel after my companions had found something to eat at a nearby sports bar.

I was placed on the entertainment center for the night where my resin head was filled with thoughts of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. I had been on the stage where they spent their final hours; I saw the airport where they departed Earth for the final time; and I cried at the spot where the three stars perished.

“Well, that’ll be the day, when you say goodbye
Yes, that’ll be the day, when you make me cry
You say you’re gonna leave, you know it’s a lie
‘Cause that’ll be the day when I die.”