In Memoriam

The Day the Music Died, 50 years later…
The private plane, a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, crashed shortly after midnight February 3, 1959 killing all aboard: Buddy Holly, pop stars Ritchie Valens and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson and young pilot Roger Peterson after the February 2 performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.
Holly originally chartered this plane to carry him and his guitarists, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup, also from West Texas. The Big Bopper had the flu and asked for Jennings’ seat. Valens flipped a coin with Allsup for the final seat.
lots of info about the tragedy HERE

Buy the Box Big Bopper was Buried In

BEAUMONT, Texas — One of rock ’n’ roll’s most macabre artifacts will go on the block when the family of the late 1950s pop star J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson auctions his casket on eBay sometime in the next few weeks — almost 50 years after “the day the music died.”
The Big Bopper’s 16-gauge steel casket was exhumed last year from Forest Lawn Cemetery so it could be moved to a more visible location with a life-size statue and historical marker.
The disinterment also offered forensic experts a chance — with his family’s blessing — to examine the pop singer’s unautopsied remains after his death in rock ’n’ roll’s first great tragedy.
On February 3, 1959, Richardson died at age 28 in the crash of a small plane in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa, that also killed 1950s rock stars Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and sent a shock wave around the world.
Jay Richardson, the Bopper’s son, plans to sell the empty casket on eBay to raise money for a musical show about his father and to keep the Bopper’s memory alive. Born three months after the crash, Richardson, saw his father for the first time at his exhumation.
more HERE