This was the scene on February 3^rd, 1959 when an airplane dubbed Miss American Pie crashed into a local field 5 1/2 miles away from Clear Lake, Iowa. All passengers and the pilot were killed in the crash. The passengers were Jiles P. Richardson a.k.a The Big Bopper, Charles H. Holly a.k.a Buddy Holly, and Richard S. Valenzuela a.k.a Ritchie Valens. The rock idols were en route to Fargo North Dakota when they died due to a pilot error. Prior to the crash the three top rock icons of the 50’s were rockin the stage at the surf ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Before getting onto the plane Tommy Allsup and Ritchie Valens flipped a coin to see who was going to be the third person to ride in the plane, and unfortunately for Ritchie Valens….he won.

The Little Richard of the Valley is what they called him; Richard S. Valenzuela was born May 13^th, 1941 with father Joseph Steven Valenzuela and mother Concepcion Reyes. When Ritchie was younger he was left handed with a right handed guitar; so he had no choice but to teach himself how to play right handed instead of left handed. By the time Ritchie was 16 years old he was playing in a local band named the Silhouettes where he played lead guitar and eventually became the singer. The date is May 1958 Bob Keane a record producer from California heard of 17 year old Ritchie Valens and went to the San Fernando Valley to hear him play at a local movie theatre which resulted in signing on May 27^th, 1958. It was all Bob’s idea to change Pacoima’s Richard S. Valenzuela into Richie Valens as a way to broaden Ritchie’s appeal to white men at the time. Ritchie’s career began at Del-Fi records with his first album release with songs “Come On, Lets Go” and “Framed”. He was a hit and went on to make one more album with songs “Donna” (a song for his girlfriend at the time) and “La Bamba” Ritchie did a remake of a Spanish song in English because he couldn’t speak Spanish. Ritchie would have had a fantastic career, but it was cut short. Ritchie was 17 years old.

            Charles H. Holly was born September 7^th, 1936. By age 5 Buddy was showing his talents when he along with his brothers won a local talent show by singing “Down the River of Memories”. A few years later at Hutchinson Jr. High Buddy Holly formed a country duo with his friend Bob Montgomery, who later on began playing rock together. When 1953 rolled around the band was no longer a duo after Larry Welborn joined the band. The bands first demo tapes were made in 1954, but the company that heard the songs didn’t want the band they only wanted Buddy Holly and later Buddy left Decca records after two singles busted. The crickets were introduced in 1957 after the band visited an independent producer named Norman Petty. Shortly after meeting with Norman Perry the band released their first single with songs “That’ll be the day” and “I’m lookin for someone to love” on the album. The release date was May 27^th, 1957 and the bands popularity some say quickly was comparable to Elvis Presley. After the huge success with their single the band was booked to play at the Apollo which never had a white act until Buddy Holly and the Crickets showed up. At first the audience was a little reluctant to get into the music, but by the third day Buddy Holly opened up with “Bo Diddley” which put the audience into an uproar of applause and cheers. Buddy met the love of his life Maria Elena Santiago at a local record company in New York where she worked as a receptionist. They couple was engaged after them having one date, and the wedding was August 15^th, 1958 in Holly’s hometown of Lubbock Texas. The couple was married for shortly over a year when Buddy met his untimely demise he was 23 years old.

            Jiles P. Richardson Jr. was born on October 24^th, 1930. He would either be called JP or Jape to distinguish himself from his father. After a few years JP moved to where he would go to high school and graduate in 1947, and that place was Beaumont, Texas. After graduation JP went and studied law at Lamar College. While JP was studying up to be a law man he also was working part time at a local radio station KTRM. Tell me did you know JP came up with The Big Bopper because of a popular dance called the bop, and like he spent no time there at all JP had already become a production manager at KTRM. But this was all after he joined the military for a couple years being a radar operator at Fort Bliss in El Paso. JP was an inspiring artist especially when he wrote two songs for other artists that went famous like “White Lightning” and “Running Bear” which were both released in 1959. Shortly after JP wrote these songs he started a music career of his own as The Big Bopper his first song was “Beggar to a King” this song didn’t make him the most famous and he didn’t really get a taste of success until “Chantilly Lace” was released. JP hit the 16^th spot on the top 100 where he stayed for 22 weeks straight. Right when he caught a break JP had a plane ride to hell after his performance at the Winter Dance Party. JP died when he was 28 years old.

            February 3^rd, 1959 will always be known as the day the music died. We lost three tremendously great artists that all had rocky careers, but still proved that they had what it takes to get somewhere doing something they love to do.

After the crash the rock icons were all thrown from the plane and the pilot was the only person left inside the plane. This isn’t for people who don’t like to hear about death so if you don’t want to know what happened to them you might want to go somewhere else. Charles H. Holly was found with a yellow leather like jacket on. His skull was split medially in the forehead and had extended into the vertex region. The crash was so violent, that half of his brain was gone and blood was coming from his ears. His face had multiple lacerations and his chest was soft due to the crushing blow he received. His left arm was completely fractured and his right arm was fractured starting at the wrist going all the way to the elbow. And both his thighs and legs showed multiple fractures and he also had a laceration to his scrotum. At least he died before he lost his manhood.

 Just a couple years ago Jiles P. Richardson’s body was dug up and an autopsy was carried out to put to rest several circling stories that JP had survived the crash and was trying to escape after one of the other musicians had shot him in the back. After the autopsy they discovered that JP had dies on impact and there was no way he could have survived there was no bullet in the body. JP was wearing a red checkered flannel shirt with blue cotton pants. His head was mangled and misshapen after the crash. His skull was split open at the suborbital ridge of the skull as well as the vertex. The brain was almost completely gone and there were several deforming fractures on both arms. The right thigh had an eight inch long laceration and further down the leg was a compound fracture.

Rich Valenzuela was wearing a black wool cloth overcoat& a white shirt. Valens head was crushed terribly leaving his right eye socket was completely eviscerated from the body. The skull was cracked open to the point where the brain tissue was almost nonexistent. His facial features were unidentifiable. His left forearm was fractured and his left hand had a 1 inch laceration. His upper left femur was fracture and his right tibia showed a compound fracture. There were two small lacerations on the mid-level point of his shin.