Buddy Holly was born September 7, 1936
Charles Hardin Holley, better known as Buddy Holly was born on Sept. 7, 1936, died in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 22.
Do you think the National Transportation Safety Board will reopen the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper? They are considering it according to this story.
Considering reopening plane crash investigation
Anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s enjoyed some great music that forever changed the music industry. It was a fun time to be a teenager but everyone was filled with sadness when we heard the following news February 3, 1959.
Lost three great musicians
We lost three greats in that tragic crash, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens. Note: The actual 1959 film of the crash scene below is pretty graphic so don’t watch it if films like this disturb you. Go to the next video – you will enjoy it more.
Do you remember this from 1957?
Buddy Holly trying tried to get his records released
Buddy Holly is such a legend, but he still struggled with record companies. Here is a remarkable phone call between Buddy Holly and Paul Cohen of Decca Records concerning Buddy being cut from Decca in 1957 uploaded to Youtube by Steve Burgan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGlIQE1AXI
The crash site
You can still visit the crash site. It’s in a corn field a little ways off a dirt road in Iowa. The entrance to the site is marked a huge replica of Buddy Holly’s famous glasses on the edge of the road. Here is a map to the site, and the Surf ballroom (their last performance was at the Surf ballroom), but it is best to use these GPS coordinates since you must travel down several dirt roads to reach it.
I visited the site one summer a few years ago and it looks much like the video below. The song in the video “Three Stars” is a song written by Tommy Dee and first recorded by EDDIE COCHRAN in 1959 as a tribute to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. The late Rock pioneer Eddie Cochran died in 1960 aged only 21 years.
His famous glasses
When Buddy Holly was killed in that plane crash, no one found his famous glasses. Evidently, they had been thrown some distance from the site and buried in the snow. It wasn’t until the snow melted the following spring that someone found the glasses, along with the Big Bopper’s watch. Both were immediately given to the Cerro Gordo County Sherriff’s office.
The Big Bopper’s watch and Buddy Holly’s glasses were placed in a sealed manila envelope marked “rec’d April 7, 1959 and then filed away and forgotten for the next 21 years. In 1980, the envelope was discovered again and opened by Sheriff Jerry Allen. The glasses were eventually returned to Holly’s widow. They can now be seen in the exhibit at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas.
The Very Best of Buddy Holly and The Crickets
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