February 4, 2020 • 18 mins
George Noory and rock and roll historian Susan Masino discuss the plane crash that killed pioneering rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in 1959, and how many other people connected to them but not on the plane died as well under mysterious circumstances.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on
iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nordy
with you. Susan Messino with as. Susan is an author,
rock and roll historian. She's been on our program a
number of times. She appears in the Vali and Van
Halen DVD The Early Years, a CDC's DVD, Let There
Be Rock. Susan's latest release as a revised and updated
(00:23):
edition of the Secrets of the Universal Laws, Past Lives,
Ghost Adventures and more that dolves into the synchronicity and manifestations,
healing with light, numerology, past lives, and also ghost adventures.
She has participated in ghost investigations and numerous locations, including
the Green Door Brothel in Deadwood, South Dakota, Gettysburg, and
(00:47):
the famed Bobby Mackie's Music Hall and Wilder, Kentucky. Several
of her books include Famous Wisconsin Musicians, The Story of
a CDC Rock and Roll Fantasy, My Life and Times
with a CDC Van Halen, and Kiss You've Been all
over the place, Susan, I have George, Hello and welcome back.
(01:09):
Thank you. I always love being on your show, So
thanks for asking me. Every time I hear that song
American Pie, I think of that tragedy that occurred sixty
one years ago, now where all kinds of things happened.
I mean in the synchronicities of who would get on
the plane, who would not? What a story and that
(01:30):
contributes go ahead, Very very sad, but very fascinating at
the same time. It truly is what is the curse?
Oh Buddy Holly? Well, you know, I've been thinking about
this for a long time, and they call it a curse,
and I'm not sure if that would be the proper
(01:51):
word for it, but I believe that because of the
loss of the big bobber Richie Valens and Buddy Holly,
three of the biggest music stars in nine, nineteen fifty exactly, yeah, Um,
losing them like that so suddenly imprint the pain, I
(02:12):
believe imprints on to where it happened to the people
it happened to, the families that you know, had to
go through that. And it seems to me, with all
the research I've done, that so many people that had
personal contact with with Buddy worked with Buddy even you know,
(02:34):
uh came to sing for the band. Once Buddy was gone,
they were all died. They all died very strangely, car crashes,
plane crashes, suicides, very sad. And it's hard to, you know,
to try to figure out like is it a curse
or is it a repetitive thing because of you know,
(02:58):
the pain that it caused in the first place. I'm
not sure or was it just bad luck. I think
it's more than bad luck, because as I found that
all the people that died that night, they all had
premonitions of their own death. Buddy Holly was even warned
(03:22):
by a producer named Joe Meet that he had gone
to a tarot reading in England the year before, and
he called Buddy and told him that this tarot card
reader said February third, Buddy Holly dies. And he called
him from England in nineteen fifty eight and told Buddy this,
(03:44):
and Buddy laughed it off because it was past February
already and he said, well, you know, don't have to
worry about that. And the very next February third is
when he died. Well, and it was all strange, where
like Richie Vallens had a coin toss and he won
the seat, he didn't want to take the bus, So
he got on the plane. Wayland Jennings, who is now dead,
(04:08):
but he was scheduled to be on that little plane.
He got off it, and I think he gave his
seat to the big Bopper, didn't he? Yes, he did.
They were sick. I mean they were on a bus
that kept breaking down, and it was bitter cold, you
know Midwestern you know, Iowa, Wisconsin, all of that, and
(04:30):
the big Bopper actually had gotten the flu. So Whyland
Jennings I gave up his seat to the big Bopper
In the movie. I believe it's the Buddy Holly story.
In the movie, they had Richie valens Is having the flu.
Was he sick too? I don't think he was sick.
I just think they were all like freezing to test. Yeah,
(04:53):
it was miserable, misable. Soon after takeoff, late at night
and very poor wintry weather conditions in the Midwest, the
pilot lost control of the light aircraft, which was a
Beechcraft Bonanza. Those of you who in the little planes,
subsequently crashed into a cornfield. Everyone on board was killed.
(05:13):
The pilot was only twenty one years old exactly, and
but he was only twenty two Ritchie was seventeen, the
Big Bopper was twenty eight, and yeah, the Big Bopper's
big song. He was a DJ, and he came up
with a song called Shantilly Lace that put him to
start him right. Yes, Yes, he was a very popular DJ,
(05:36):
and he did have a couple of hit songs, Shantilly
Lace and another one that I like. Like I said,
I have so many notes on the band and all
the people involved with it, but he was very popular
and well liked. Great guy on tour, you know, didn't
read anything about him that wasn't good, So he was
(05:59):
seemed to be a great guy. And he did have
a big hit with that song. Now, what was the
Buddy Holly curse, Susan? The Buddy Holly curse was I
just like I said, I think it's uh it imprints somehow.
I mean, if the curse happened before the plane crash
(06:19):
right exactly. Yes, yes, they they all had premonitions of
their own deaths. Richie Vallens, as you might have seen
in the movie LaBamba, he had a fear of planes
and he had to go to his grandfather's funeral one day,
and the day that he was not at school, a
(06:40):
small plane crashed into the actual place in the playground.
That's right. He kept seeing that vision of it too. Yes, yeah,
so he was. He did not like to fly at all.
And Buddy and his wife Maria Elena both had a
dream on the same night, which is really really creepy.
(07:02):
She dreamed that she was standing in a field and
she saw this big fireball out of the sky that
just exploded and made a big hole in the ground.
And the next day Buddy woke up and told her
that he dreamed that he was on a plane with
himself and his brother and his wife and they dropped
(07:23):
her off on the top of a building and said
we'll be back to get you. Oh my god. So
they all had premonitions. Didn't a band member make a
funny joke comment to Buddy Holly before he took the flight.
What did he say? Oh? Yes, he said, Well, it
(07:44):
was Whalen Jennings, and I think Buddy was teasing him
because he had lost his seat on the plane, you know,
he gave it up to the big bopper and he
mentioned but he said something like, well, I hope your
old bus breaks and Whalen shot back, well, I hope
you're old plane crashing. Oh my god, that must have
(08:05):
haunted him for years after that. It did. He never
forgave himself for saying it. And it did affect him,
it really did. Oh my gosh. Very sad. And why
did they take a plane anyway, Susan, Well, they were
on this bus that I have looked through their tour,
(08:26):
and you know, I'm from Wisconsin and they were up
in Wisconsin doing several dates. Actually, they were in Green Bay,
Wisconsin the night before they played the Surf Ballroom, and
they were driving in very severe weather all the time,
and some of the dates were up to five hundred
miles apart from each other, and the bus kept breaking down,
(08:48):
the heat kept not working. People were getting sick. Even
after the crash itself. The drummer, Carl Bunch was hospitalized
for frost, but frost bitten feet from being on the bus.
So the bus was not working out well at all.
It turned out to be a very miserable way to travel.
(09:10):
There were the performers who were at the event at
the Surf Ballroom and clear Lake, Iowa, and it was freezing.
If you're not from the Midwest, those winters on those
flat planes are very very cold, so I can imagine
those people were just you know, really freezing, especially with
the bus condition that it was in, oh, I know,
(09:31):
and the heat itself kept breaking down, so they you know,
the bus would break down and the heat would go off,
and it was a mess, you know. And Big Bopper
was sick, and they were tired too. I mean they
were almost playing every other day or almost every day,
just as I said, some were up to three hundred
miles apart from each other and five hundred miles apart,
(09:54):
so it's very grueling. And what I also found out
too is that if but he would have been being
paid properly for what he had already accomplished, he wouldn't
have needed to go on that tour. Well that's a
good point because he was a superstar at that time,
wasn't he? Yes, he was, but he wasn't making the
(10:15):
kind of superstar money he should have exactly, And that
there's a lot of speculation that his manager was not
as honest as he should have been. And his new wife,
he just got married six months before this. His new wife,
Maria Elena, was two about two weeks pregnant when he
(10:35):
went on the plane that night, and she blamed herself.
He wouldn't let her come along because she had just
started getting morning sickness. And she kept saying in a
lot of interviews that I found that if she would
have been there with him, they never would have got
on a plane. And she ended up having a miscarriage
because of all the stress after the plane crash exactly
(10:56):
and right after they called it psychological trauma, and she
lost the baby right after the accident happened, Susanne. Who
was Eddie Cochrane? Okay, Eddie, Like looking through my notes there,
Eddie Cochrane was a guy, a musician who was supposed
(11:19):
to be on that tour, So he kind of, you know,
in a way, I think he felt guilty that he
wasn't there. Was he a singer star by himself or
was he a group Okay, yep, he was a you know,
a singer performer and looking up here on well, I
(11:39):
know what happened to him, but he would he felt
really guilty about not being on the flight or not
being there for Buddy. And the following year, in April
of nineteen sixty, Eddie Cochrane his girlfriend who was a songwriter,
Sharon Sheeley, and she had written Poor Little Fool for
(12:02):
Ricky Nelson and written a lot of hit songs. And
they were with gene Vincent, another rock and roll star
back in the fifties. They were on their way to
London's Heedro Airport to return to California, and on the
way to the airport there car suffered a blown tire.
(12:23):
It put the car into just a spin out of control,
smashed into a light pole and Eddie Cochrane was thrown
from the car and killed instantly. And that was just
a little over a year after Buddy died. I mean,
and this was happening to people over and over again,
(12:43):
strange strange connections with the people. There was somebody committed
suicide too that he was so depressed about all this.
Who is that? Yes, well, there there are a few.
The first what I did was I to put it
into a chronological order, because there's so many people involved
(13:04):
in this. So that happened in April seventeenth, nineteen sixties,
when Eddie Cochrane died. And then in October of nineteen
sixty two, Whyland took over singing for a while after
Buddy was killed, and of course they kept the winner
dance party tour going because you know, you gotta make money,
(13:25):
and they hired a singer called his name was Ronnie
Smith and he replaced Buddy. He continued the remainder of
the tour and in what was it nineteen sixty two,
he was committed to a state hospital in Texas for
drug abuse and hung himself at the age of twenty four.
(13:47):
Oh my gosh, this is almost like the Curse of
the twenty seven Club. You've heard of that one, Oh,
I know, yeah, And that's a long story there too.
It's a maze amazing how all this, you know, comes together.
And you know, um, I actually wanted to find out
who Buddy Holly's influences were because he was, you know,
(14:10):
one of the first rock and roll pioneers, and he
actually loved Hank William Senior, which makes sense because Hank,
you know, rocked out in his own way, and that
was one of the people that Buddy Holly loved to
listen to. Wasn't there another plane crash in nineteen sixty three? Yes,
(14:34):
Next the next thing that would happen is um cowboy Copus,
who was a Nashville star. He had done a fourteen
date tour with Buddy Holly, Hank Thompson, and George Jones.
He was actually returning from a benefit for the widow
of Cactus Jack Call, a local disc jockey who had
(14:55):
died in crash. He was writing in a single propeller
piper command she with fellow musicians Hackshaw, Hawkins and Patsy Kline. Pilot.
The pilot Randy Hughes, lost visibility and went down about
seventy miles north of Nashville. Is that's the plane crash
that killed Patsy Kline? Yes, Oh my gosh, that was
(15:17):
March fifth, nineteen sixty three. What does that tell you
about these little planes, Susan Joe. I don't like them.
I really recommend no one to fly in them unless
they're just doing something very safe. But again we see
even this horrific accident that involved Kobe Bryant and his daughter,
(15:40):
seven other people, they should never have taken off that
day because of the weather. They should never have been
given Clarence right, Yeah, exactly, And the same thing with
Buddy Holly. It was bad weather. That pilot was only
trained in sight flying and with his instrument, and we're
(16:03):
talking sixty one year old technology. Which wasn't that sophisticated exactly. Yes,
what happened, what happened in sixty four were the original Crickets. Okay,
the original Crickets were that was part of Buddy's group, right, yeah, yeah,
the original ones Jerry Allison, Joe By Maudlin, and Sonny Curtis.
(16:25):
And they continued as a group and brought in seventeen
year old David Box to replace Buddy Holly. Now. Box
was born in Texas and joined the Crickets in nineteen sixty.
He did a couple of recordings with them that didn't
go over well. D you know, it's hard to replaced
Buddy Holly, Let's put it that way. And on October
(16:47):
twenty third of nineteen sixty four, David Box hired Assessment
Skyhawk one seventy two to fly to a show in
Harris County, Texas. He and his drummer and his guitar
player left right after the show, and shortly after takeoff,
the cessment nose dived into the ground, killing all three passes.
Oh my god, these are people who just had some
(17:10):
kind of relationship with Buddy Holly or something. It just
seems like everybody who had their lives touched by Buddy Holly.
Something tragic happened to them pretty much. Yes, yes, Even
doing all this research, I haven't played his music because
(17:32):
I'm kind of creeped out because when I started doing
this research, he definitely is popping up. I'm having you know,
all week long, I had people sending me text messages
and stuff saying I just heard something about the Buddy
Holly curse, and I was thinking that, I thought of you.
And tonight, actually I'm in Savannah, Georgia, and I was
(17:55):
out and I had said a prayer to the gentleman
that lost their lives, and I said, it's a shame
down here that we never hear any of your music.
And right after I thought that this car dealership in Savannah,
which is illegally using this, but they did a commercial
to the melody of La Bamba. It's everyone on the radio.
(18:17):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to Coast am
dot com for more
Now Here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on
iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nordy
with you. Susan Messino with as. Susan is an author,
rock and roll historian. She's been on our program a
number of times. She appears in the Vali and Van
Halen DVD The Early Years, a CDC's DVD, Let There
Be Rock. Susan's latest release as a revised and updated
(00:23):
edition of the Secrets of the Universal Laws, Past Lives,
Ghost Adventures and more that dolves into the synchronicity and manifestations,
healing with light, numerology, past lives, and also ghost adventures.
She has participated in ghost investigations and numerous locations, including
the Green Door Brothel in Deadwood, South Dakota, Gettysburg, and
(00:47):
the famed Bobby Mackie's Music Hall and Wilder, Kentucky. Several
of her books include Famous Wisconsin Musicians, The Story of
a CDC Rock and Roll Fantasy, My Life and Times
with a CDC Van Halen, and Kiss You've Been all
over the place, Susan, I have George, Hello and welcome back.
(01:09):
Thank you. I always love being on your show, So
thanks for asking me. Every time I hear that song
American Pie, I think of that tragedy that occurred sixty
one years ago, now where all kinds of things happened.
I mean in the synchronicities of who would get on
the plane, who would not? What a story and that
(01:30):
contributes go ahead, Very very sad, but very fascinating at
the same time. It truly is what is the curse?
Oh Buddy Holly? Well, you know, I've been thinking about
this for a long time, and they call it a curse,
and I'm not sure if that would be the proper
(01:51):
word for it, but I believe that because of the
loss of the big bobber Richie Valens and Buddy Holly,
three of the biggest music stars in nine, nineteen fifty exactly, yeah, Um,
losing them like that so suddenly imprint the pain, I
(02:12):
believe imprints on to where it happened to the people
it happened to, the families that you know, had to
go through that. And it seems to me, with all
the research I've done, that so many people that had
personal contact with with Buddy worked with Buddy even you know,
(02:34):
uh came to sing for the band. Once Buddy was gone,
they were all died. They all died very strangely, car crashes,
plane crashes, suicides, very sad. And it's hard to, you know,
to try to figure out like is it a curse
or is it a repetitive thing because of you know,
(02:58):
the pain that it caused in the first place. I'm
not sure or was it just bad luck. I think
it's more than bad luck, because as I found that
all the people that died that night, they all had
premonitions of their own death. Buddy Holly was even warned
(03:22):
by a producer named Joe Meet that he had gone
to a tarot reading in England the year before, and
he called Buddy and told him that this tarot card
reader said February third, Buddy Holly dies. And he called
him from England in nineteen fifty eight and told Buddy this,
(03:44):
and Buddy laughed it off because it was past February
already and he said, well, you know, don't have to
worry about that. And the very next February third is
when he died. Well, and it was all strange, where
like Richie Vallens had a coin toss and he won
the seat, he didn't want to take the bus, So
he got on the plane. Wayland Jennings, who is now dead,
(04:08):
but he was scheduled to be on that little plane.
He got off it, and I think he gave his
seat to the big Bopper, didn't he? Yes, he did.
They were sick. I mean they were on a bus
that kept breaking down, and it was bitter cold, you
know Midwestern you know, Iowa, Wisconsin, all of that, and
(04:30):
the big Bopper actually had gotten the flu. So Whyland
Jennings I gave up his seat to the big Bopper
In the movie. I believe it's the Buddy Holly story.
In the movie, they had Richie valens Is having the flu.
Was he sick too? I don't think he was sick.
I just think they were all like freezing to test. Yeah,
(04:53):
it was miserable, misable. Soon after takeoff, late at night
and very poor wintry weather conditions in the Midwest, the
pilot lost control of the light aircraft, which was a
Beechcraft Bonanza. Those of you who in the little planes,
subsequently crashed into a cornfield. Everyone on board was killed.
(05:13):
The pilot was only twenty one years old exactly, and
but he was only twenty two Ritchie was seventeen, the
Big Bopper was twenty eight, and yeah, the Big Bopper's
big song. He was a DJ, and he came up
with a song called Shantilly Lace that put him to
start him right. Yes, Yes, he was a very popular DJ,
(05:36):
and he did have a couple of hit songs, Shantilly
Lace and another one that I like. Like I said,
I have so many notes on the band and all
the people involved with it, but he was very popular
and well liked. Great guy on tour, you know, didn't
read anything about him that wasn't good, So he was
(05:59):
seemed to be a great guy. And he did have
a big hit with that song. Now, what was the
Buddy Holly curse, Susan? The Buddy Holly curse was I
just like I said, I think it's uh it imprints somehow.
I mean, if the curse happened before the plane crash
(06:19):
right exactly. Yes, yes, they they all had premonitions of
their own deaths. Richie Vallens, as you might have seen
in the movie LaBamba, he had a fear of planes
and he had to go to his grandfather's funeral one day,
and the day that he was not at school, a
(06:40):
small plane crashed into the actual place in the playground.
That's right. He kept seeing that vision of it too. Yes, yeah,
so he was. He did not like to fly at all.
And Buddy and his wife Maria Elena both had a
dream on the same night, which is really really creepy.
(07:02):
She dreamed that she was standing in a field and
she saw this big fireball out of the sky that
just exploded and made a big hole in the ground.
And the next day Buddy woke up and told her
that he dreamed that he was on a plane with
himself and his brother and his wife and they dropped
(07:23):
her off on the top of a building and said
we'll be back to get you. Oh my god. So
they all had premonitions. Didn't a band member make a
funny joke comment to Buddy Holly before he took the flight.
What did he say? Oh? Yes, he said, Well, it
(07:44):
was Whalen Jennings, and I think Buddy was teasing him
because he had lost his seat on the plane, you know,
he gave it up to the big bopper and he
mentioned but he said something like, well, I hope your
old bus breaks and Whalen shot back, well, I hope
you're old plane crashing. Oh my god, that must have
(08:05):
haunted him for years after that. It did. He never
forgave himself for saying it. And it did affect him,
it really did. Oh my gosh. Very sad. And why
did they take a plane anyway, Susan, Well, they were
on this bus that I have looked through their tour,
(08:26):
and you know, I'm from Wisconsin and they were up
in Wisconsin doing several dates. Actually, they were in Green Bay,
Wisconsin the night before they played the Surf Ballroom, and
they were driving in very severe weather all the time,
and some of the dates were up to five hundred
miles apart from each other, and the bus kept breaking down,
(08:48):
the heat kept not working. People were getting sick. Even
after the crash itself. The drummer, Carl Bunch was hospitalized
for frost, but frost bitten feet from being on the bus.
So the bus was not working out well at all.
It turned out to be a very miserable way to travel.
(09:10):
There were the performers who were at the event at
the Surf Ballroom and clear Lake, Iowa, and it was freezing.
If you're not from the Midwest, those winters on those
flat planes are very very cold, so I can imagine
those people were just you know, really freezing, especially with
the bus condition that it was in, oh, I know,
(09:31):
and the heat itself kept breaking down, so they you know,
the bus would break down and the heat would go off,
and it was a mess, you know. And Big Bopper
was sick, and they were tired too. I mean they
were almost playing every other day or almost every day,
just as I said, some were up to three hundred
miles apart from each other and five hundred miles apart,
(09:54):
so it's very grueling. And what I also found out
too is that if but he would have been being
paid properly for what he had already accomplished, he wouldn't
have needed to go on that tour. Well that's a
good point because he was a superstar at that time,
wasn't he? Yes, he was, but he wasn't making the
(10:15):
kind of superstar money he should have exactly, And that
there's a lot of speculation that his manager was not
as honest as he should have been. And his new wife,
he just got married six months before this. His new wife,
Maria Elena, was two about two weeks pregnant when he
(10:35):
went on the plane that night, and she blamed herself.
He wouldn't let her come along because she had just
started getting morning sickness. And she kept saying in a
lot of interviews that I found that if she would
have been there with him, they never would have got
on a plane. And she ended up having a miscarriage
because of all the stress after the plane crash exactly
(10:56):
and right after they called it psychological trauma, and she
lost the baby right after the accident happened, Susanne. Who
was Eddie Cochrane? Okay, Eddie, Like looking through my notes there,
Eddie Cochrane was a guy, a musician who was supposed
(11:19):
to be on that tour, So he kind of, you know,
in a way, I think he felt guilty that he
wasn't there. Was he a singer star by himself or
was he a group Okay, yep, he was a you know,
a singer performer and looking up here on well, I
(11:39):
know what happened to him, but he would he felt
really guilty about not being on the flight or not
being there for Buddy. And the following year, in April
of nineteen sixty, Eddie Cochrane his girlfriend who was a songwriter,
Sharon Sheeley, and she had written Poor Little Fool for
(12:02):
Ricky Nelson and written a lot of hit songs. And
they were with gene Vincent, another rock and roll star
back in the fifties. They were on their way to
London's Heedro Airport to return to California, and on the
way to the airport there car suffered a blown tire.
(12:23):
It put the car into just a spin out of control,
smashed into a light pole and Eddie Cochrane was thrown
from the car and killed instantly. And that was just
a little over a year after Buddy died. I mean,
and this was happening to people over and over again,
(12:43):
strange strange connections with the people. There was somebody committed
suicide too that he was so depressed about all this.
Who is that? Yes, well, there there are a few.
The first what I did was I to put it
into a chronological order, because there's so many people involved
(13:04):
in this. So that happened in April seventeenth, nineteen sixties,
when Eddie Cochrane died. And then in October of nineteen
sixty two, Whyland took over singing for a while after
Buddy was killed, and of course they kept the winner
dance party tour going because you know, you gotta make money,
(13:25):
and they hired a singer called his name was Ronnie
Smith and he replaced Buddy. He continued the remainder of
the tour and in what was it nineteen sixty two,
he was committed to a state hospital in Texas for
drug abuse and hung himself at the age of twenty four.
(13:47):
Oh my gosh, this is almost like the Curse of
the twenty seven Club. You've heard of that one, Oh,
I know, yeah, And that's a long story there too.
It's a maze amazing how all this, you know, comes together.
And you know, um, I actually wanted to find out
who Buddy Holly's influences were because he was, you know,
(14:10):
one of the first rock and roll pioneers, and he
actually loved Hank William Senior, which makes sense because Hank,
you know, rocked out in his own way, and that
was one of the people that Buddy Holly loved to
listen to. Wasn't there another plane crash in nineteen sixty three? Yes,
(14:34):
Next the next thing that would happen is um cowboy Copus,
who was a Nashville star. He had done a fourteen
date tour with Buddy Holly, Hank Thompson, and George Jones.
He was actually returning from a benefit for the widow
of Cactus Jack Call, a local disc jockey who had
(14:55):
died in crash. He was writing in a single propeller
piper command she with fellow musicians Hackshaw, Hawkins and Patsy Kline. Pilot.
The pilot Randy Hughes, lost visibility and went down about
seventy miles north of Nashville. Is that's the plane crash
that killed Patsy Kline? Yes, Oh my gosh, that was
(15:17):
March fifth, nineteen sixty three. What does that tell you
about these little planes, Susan Joe. I don't like them.
I really recommend no one to fly in them unless
they're just doing something very safe. But again we see
even this horrific accident that involved Kobe Bryant and his daughter,
(15:40):
seven other people, they should never have taken off that
day because of the weather. They should never have been
given Clarence right, Yeah, exactly, And the same thing with
Buddy Holly. It was bad weather. That pilot was only
trained in sight flying and with his instrument, and we're
(16:03):
talking sixty one year old technology. Which wasn't that sophisticated exactly. Yes,
what happened, what happened in sixty four were the original Crickets. Okay,
the original Crickets were that was part of Buddy's group, right, yeah, yeah,
the original ones Jerry Allison, Joe By Maudlin, and Sonny Curtis.
(16:25):
And they continued as a group and brought in seventeen
year old David Box to replace Buddy Holly. Now. Box
was born in Texas and joined the Crickets in nineteen sixty.
He did a couple of recordings with them that didn't
go over well. D you know, it's hard to replaced
Buddy Holly, Let's put it that way. And on October
(16:47):
twenty third of nineteen sixty four, David Box hired Assessment
Skyhawk one seventy two to fly to a show in
Harris County, Texas. He and his drummer and his guitar
player left right after the show, and shortly after takeoff,
the cessment nose dived into the ground, killing all three passes.
Oh my god, these are people who just had some
(17:10):
kind of relationship with Buddy Holly or something. It just
seems like everybody who had their lives touched by Buddy Holly.
Something tragic happened to them pretty much. Yes, yes, Even
doing all this research, I haven't played his music because
(17:32):
I'm kind of creeped out because when I started doing
this research, he definitely is popping up. I'm having you know,
all week long, I had people sending me text messages
and stuff saying I just heard something about the Buddy
Holly curse, and I was thinking that, I thought of you.
And tonight, actually I'm in Savannah, Georgia, and I was
(17:55):
out and I had said a prayer to the gentleman
that lost their lives, and I said, it's a shame
down here that we never hear any of your music.
And right after I thought that this car dealership in Savannah,
which is illegally using this, but they did a commercial
to the melody of La Bamba. It's everyone on the radio.
(18:17):
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