The day the music died

In early 1959, Rock n Roll star Buddy Holly was readying to go on a three-week tour across the Midwest, opening on January 23, 1959, with other great performers such as Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. He assembled a backing band consisting of Tommy Allsup (guitar), Waylon Jennings (bass) and Carl Bunch (drums) and known as The Crickets.

The tour turned out to be a miserable ordeal for the performers, who were subjected to long overnight travel in a bus plagued with a faulty heating system in -25°F (-32°C) temperatures.

The bus also broke down several times between stops. Following a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959, Holly chartered a small airplane to take him to the next stop on the tour.

He, Valens, Richardson, and the pilot were killed en route to Moorhead, Minnesota, when their plane crashed soon after taking off from nearby Mason City in the early morning hours of February 3.

Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie".