Buddy Holly, J. P. Richardson ("The Big Bopper"), and Ritchie Valens

Here are
Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper,
and Ritchie Valens

(Click on the image to zoom in.)

Today everyone knows about Buddy Holly, J. P. Richardson - who performed under the name "The Big Bopper" - and Ritchie Valens. Within the span of 1957 to 1959, all had Top 10 Billboard hits. Buddy and his band the Crickets had released "That'll Be the Day" which reached #1 on Billboard's Honor Roll of Hits in September 1957. The Big Bopper had a surprise hit with the humorous novelty tune "Chantilly Lace", making #7 on the Honor Roll in November. Ritchie's "Donna" had been released in November 1958 and eventually rose to #2.

Then after playing for a concert and dance in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2, 1959, all three were on board the flight from Mason City en route to Fargo, North Dakota, piloted by Roger Peterson¹. The irony was that February 2 was supposed to be a night off. Instead, it had been added to the itinerary only a few days before.

Footnote

The reader may find some references which state that the crash was on February 2. True, the plane did take off not long after the end of the tour's night performance on that night and so it's natural to think the crash was late on February 2. But the Civil Aeronautics Board investigation stated the plane took off from the Mason City Municipal Airport about 1:00 a. m. on February 3, and it soon crashed about five miles to the north.

Close Footnote

Although many newspapers put the story on page 1, others - even in Texas (the home state of Buddy and the Big Bopper) and California (home of Ritchie) - put the news in the back sections. The disparate reporting reflects the ambiguity felt throughout the country about the musical genre then called Rock and Roll.

Lenny
He said some rock was good.

By 1959 and despite Leonard Bernstein assuring the audiences who attended his Young People's Concerts that there was good Rock and Roll, some critics and scholars hoped that Rock and Roll was not here to stay. Instead, the wish was it would eventually fade away and popular music would return to the days when there was a musical commonality between generations. After all it had only been a few years earlier that hit tunes were being sung by the then teenage heartthrobs like Eddie Fisher, Johnny Ray, and Bobby Darin. But the parents liked their music, too! Surely, they hoped, the former days of inter-generational harmony would return.

Eddie, Johnny, and Bobby
(Click to zoom in and out.)

Alas, it was not to be. By 1957 some performers of the respectable Country and Western music had split off to that horrible new sound. One of the former Country and Western musicians was a vigorous piano player named Jerry Lee Lewis. He soon switched to (ugh) Rock-and-Roll. But even his wild and crazy gyrations were eclipsed by those of another Country and Western singer, E. Aaron Presley.

Charles Hardin Holley, (yes, spelled with an "e") had been playing Country and Western Music since his high school days - which really isn't a surprise since he was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. But by the time he appeared on Ed Sullivan's Really Big Shew, he too had switched to the more lucrative Rock and Roll.

Jiles Perry Richardson had been working as a disc jockey in Beaumont, Texas, where he became known as the Big Bopper. But J. P. was also a songwriter of merit. His song "Running Bear" was recorded by Johnny Preston and it ultimately rose to #1. "White Lightning" was made famous by George Jones and reached #1 on the Country Charts.

But J. P. himself had released four songs on two platters before "Chantilly Lace" broke into the Top 10. Unfortunately, the flip side "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor" did not fare well. On the other hand "The Big Bopper's Wedding", which was the follow-up song to "Chantilly Lace", did at least crack the Top 40.

All Rock and Rollers, though, were not refugees from C&W. Ever since he was a kid Ritchie Valenzuela had been playing popular music where he incorporated features of the Los Angeles Latin-American culture. His fast rise to fame led him to appear on American Bandstand when he was only 17.

Some historians will point out that America's musical influence waned with a British Invasion which started with the arrival of Four Lads From Liverpool. But the truth is the so-called Invasion had considerable re-importation of American music which had been embraced by the Young Albions along with American blue jeans, ten pin bowling, and the American form of rarebit called pizza.²

Footnote

Although purists may argue that pizza is not an American food, Alberto Grandi, professor of history at the University of Parma, has written that many foods of which the Italians take such pride were in fact imported from America in the late 19th and early 20th Century.

Not that the Italians did not have their own cuisine. But in the 19th Century there was a large number of immigrants from Italy arriving in America and naturally they brought their native Italian recipes with them. These included pasta dishes as well as a flatbread covered with fruits and vegetables, the latter being known in Roman times.

So when the recipes arrived in America they were altered to fit what was available. Spaghetti - often simply served in Italy without embellishment - was covered with tomato sauce and ground meat as the mis-named Spaghetti Bolognese. Recipes also emerged where the ground beef was fashioned into small spheres and became what Americans took as the quintessential Italian dish.

And so - at least according to the new scholarship - the pizza went from being simply fruits and vegetables on thin bread to the American pizza covered with tomato sauce, meats, and cheese. The recipes were then sent to the relatives who stayed in Italy or in some cases the Italian immigrants returned to Italy bringing with them the new Italian-American cuisine.

But hold on there, pellegrino! Take a look at the writings of no less a personage than the French writer Alexandre Dumas. In 1845, he left his impressions of a visit to Naples. There he mentions that one of the foods most prized by the poorest Neapolitans, the lazzaroni, was pizza. It wasn't just fruit on flatbread. The ingredients included cheese, olive oil, and meats.

Or as Alexandre wrote it:

As to his [lazzarone] food, this is more easy to describe; for, although the lazzarone belongs to the species omnivora, he, generally, eats but two things: the pizza and the cocomero or watermelon.
  The impression has gone out into the world, that the lazzarone lives upon macaroni; this is a great mistake, which it is time to correct. The macaroni is, it is true, a native of Naples; but, at the present time, it is an European dish, which has traveled, like civilization, and which, like civilization, finds itself very far from its cradle. The macaroni, moreover, costs two sous a pound; which renders it inaccessible to the purse of the lazzarone; except upon Sundays and holidays. At all other times the lazzarone eats, as we have said, the pizza and the cocomero; the cocomero in summer, the pizza in winter. The pizza is a sort of bun; it is round, and made of the same dough as bread. It is of different sizes according to the price. A pizza of two farthings suffices for one person, a pizza of two sous is enough to satisfy a whole family.
  At first sight, the pizza appears to be a simple dish, upon examination it proves to be compound. The pizza is prepared with bacon, with lard, with cheese, with tomatos, with fish. It is the gastronomic thermometer of the market. The price of the pizza rises and falls according to the rate of the ingredients just designated; according to the abundance or scarcity of the year. When the fish-pizza sells at a half grain, the fishing has been good; when the oil-pizza sells at a grain, the yield of olives has been bad. The rate at which the pizza sells is, also, influenced by the greater or less degree of freshness; it will be easily understood that yesterday's pizza will not bring the same price as today's. For small purses, they have the pizza of a week old, which, if not agreeably, very advantageously, supplies the place of the seabiscuit.
  The pizza as we have said is the food of winter. On the first of May the pizza gives place to the cocomero; but the merchandise, only, disappears, the merchant remains the same. The seller is like the ancient Janus, with a face which weeps upon the past and smiles upon the future. On the said day the pizza-jolo becomes the mellonaro. The change does not even extend itself to the shop; the shop remains the same. A pannier of cocomeri instead of a basket of pizza is now carried; a sponge is passed over the traces of oil, bacon, lard, cheese, tomatoes and fish which have been left by the winter comestible and all is done; we pass to the comestible of the summer.

So Alexandre says pizza is round and made from bread dough, with oil and lard, and cheese, bacon, fish, and tomatoes. Sure sounds like modern pizza!

Weeehhhhheeeeellllll, not quite. A careful reading indicates that Alexandre is not describing the modern pizza. He refers to pizza as a "bun" with bacon, fish, tomatoes, and olive oil and pizza can be carried in a basket. Certainly that would be a recipe - no joke intended - for one messy basket.

Furthermore, if you turn to Alexandre's book in the original French, you'll find the word describing the pizza was in fact talmouse ("La pizza est une espèce de talmouse comme on en fait à Saint-Denis"). And in French, a talmouse is a pastry shell with a filling.

So it seems that the pizzas that Alexandre describes are what we would call a calzone. In fact, you will find calzones described as "turnovers" filled with pizza toppings. At one point in making calzones they look very much like a pizza but it is then folded over and sealed by crimping. With all the fillings sealed nice and tight, the final product could easily be carried in a basket.

A calzone is similar to a stromboli but a stromboli starts off with a rectangular piece of dough and is sealed by pressing the edges together with additional dough over the edges. To the uninitiated, calzones and strombolis can be easily confused.

Close Footnote

Although it took about thirty years A. E. (after Elvis) eventually parents and the kids returned to listening to the same type of music. Certainly today the music preferred by sequential generations differs less than Glen Miller's "In the Mood" and Elvis singing "Tutti Frutti". Not that the kids and their folks all liked the same makers of the music, a division which can still produce generational divisions.

What surprises the modern student of Rock and Roll is how many big names are now listed on "Rock and Roll Stars Everyone Has Forgotten". True, we can understand singers and musicians like Chuck Willis ("C. C. Rider"), Wilbert Harrison ("Kansas City"), Jackie Wilson ("Lonely Teardrops"), Lenny Dee ("Plantation Boogie"), Vince Martin ("Cindy, Oh Cindy"), and Thurston Harris ("Little Bitty Pretty One") slipping from the American Collective Consciousness. And some of the once big name bands have faded almost completely. Does anyone remember The Cyrkle, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Spanky and Our Gang, and The Turtles?

But also finding themselves on the "forgotten" lists are also the likes of Bill Halley, Connie Francis, Johnny Rivers, Barry McGuire, Grace Slick, Carl Perkins, and Bobby Gentry. La vache! Ce n'est pas possible!

Of course, if you wait long enough then everyone will be forgotten. Today you'll find on lists of "Bands Everyone Has Forgotten" some of the true icons. These include Blood Sweat and Tears, Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs, Jan and Dean, The Dave Clark Five, Manfred Mann, Tommy James and the Shondells, The Four Seasons, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Righteous Brothers, The Lovin' Spoonful, Steppenwolf, and (gasp!) Herman's Hermits - the latter still performing as "Herman's Hermits Starring Peter Noone".

Perhaps as a way to avoid such oblivion, quite a few groups have been assuming the names of popular songs - even songs made famous by others. That way if you look up the song, you'll stumble across the group and their releases. So you have bands named Deep Purple, Indian Summer, Fiddler's Green, A Day in the Life (!), and Hound Dog (!!). One group - as mentioned on a popular panel show - has picked a name that certainly attracts attention on the posters and announcements. Who knows? Maybe the rock band Free Beer and Pizza will never be forgotten.

The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, Larry Lehmer (Schirmer Books, Simon and Schuster, 1997).

"The Big Bopper: Life, Music, and Legacy of Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.", Alan Haworth, Texas State Historical Society, December 1, 1995, (Revised: September 2, 2015).

"The Life and Legacy of Buddy Holly: Rock and Roll Pioneer", Martin Kohout, Texas State Historical Society, February 1, 1995, (Revised: January 28, 2020).

"Rock Stars Die In Plane Crash - Teens Lose 3 Idols", Associated Press, Oklahoma City Times, February 3, 1959, p. 1.

"Rock 'n' Roll Idols Killed", [The Regina, Saskatchewan] Leader Post, Associated Press, February 3, 1959, p. 1.

"Stars of Rock 'n' Roll Troupe Die in Plane Crash Which Claims 4 Lives", Bend [Oregon] Bulletin, Associated Press, February 3, 1959, p. 1.

"3 Rock 'n' Roll Singers Killed", The Abilene [Texas] Reporter-News, February 3, 1959, p. 22.

"3 Rock 'n' Roll Stars Killed in Plane Crash", The Mount Pleasant [Texas] Daily Times, February 3, 1959, p. 1.

"The Day the Music Died and Luck Intervened", Mark Rank, WASHU, Washington University (St. Louis), January 29, 2025.

"Food Expert Sparks Fury After Claiming Famous Italian Dishes Are Actually American", Daniel Keane, The Standard, March 28, 2023.

"In Other Important Questions, What's the Difference Between a Calzone and a Stromboli?", Food Network, March 11, 2022.