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Diane (TWS Admin) Short, SA
to remember
Richardson, Jiles P., Jr. (The Big Bopper), CPL.
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Contact Info
Home Town Sabine Pass
Date of Passing Feb 03, 1959
Location of Interment Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Funeral Home - Beaumont, Texas
Rock Singer. He is best remembered for his song "Chantilly Lace" (1958), and for dying in the plane crash that killed rockers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, along with pilot Roger Peterson. Born Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr, in Sabine Pass, Texas, he was the son of Jiles P. and Elise Stalsby Richardson. His father worked as a driller in the oil fields. To distinguish him from his father, he was called JP or Jape by his friends. When he was very young, his family moved to Beaumont, Texas, where he would graduate from Beaumont High School in 1947. He would study law at Lamar College, while working part time at KTRM radio. In 1955, he joined the United States Army, where he spent two years as a radar operator at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Upon his discharge, he returned full time to KTRM radio, and noticing that youths liked a new dance called "The Bop," he kicked off his radio show as "The Big Bopper." He soon became the station's Program Director. About this time, he started writing songs, mostly for other singers, which became hits, such as "White Lightning" (1959) and "Running Bear" (1959), although the songs became famous after his death. Mercury Records Promotion Director Harold "Pappy" Dailey heard of him and signed him to a contract, and his first song, "Beggar to a King" had poor to moderate success. But with "Chantilly Lace" Richardson soon hit the pop charts, becoming 16th, and spending 22 weeks on the Top 40. Taking time off from KTRM Radio, Richardson joined Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts for a Winter Dance Party tour of the Midwest. When the bus broke down near Mason City, Iowa, Holly charted a 4-seat Beechcraft Bonanza plane to fly to the next stop, taking Richardson and Valens with him. Taking off in a light snow, the plane crashed just five miles later, killing everyone aboard. On March 6, 2007, he was exhumed and autopsied by Dr. Bill Bass at his son's request. It was concluded that he died of massive injuries in the plane crash of February 3, 1959. After Bass' examination of The Bopper's remains, he was reburied in a new grave at Forest Lawn, in a different part of the cemetery where a historic plaque had already been installed, and where a bronze statue to the early rock star is planned to be erected. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)
Remembering February 3, 1959: â??The Day The Music Diedâ??
It was a tragic day 54 years ago today in music history indeed. It was the day that music lost some of its shining, most earliest influential figures, men who opened the floodgates and created some of the blueprints that formed, shaped, and created rock and roll: Ritchie Valens, The â??Big Bopperâ??, and the bespectacled skinny kid, who created rock and roll arrangements which still get used, drawn and quartered, becoming etching and drafting tools in a way for the entire schematic of that genre, Buddy Holly.
It was on February 3rd, 1959, near Clear Lake, Iowa, that the single engine 1947 Beechcraft airplane carrying the aforementioned musicians crashed during a past-midnight run in which there was rather inclement, icy conditions. The men had earlier been part of a Winter Party Dance Tour, which was making its way across the country. After finishing the gig, Holly had been frustrated with the conditions of a tour bus that he and his cohorts had been using, one which was not equipped for the cold winter weather which gripped the Midwest and Great Plains that year. He finally decided to rent an airplane to jettison himself and whoever wanted to accompany him, to the following gigs.
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Those people turned out to be Ritchie Valens (who was a singer who had hits like â??Come on Letâ??s Go,â?? â??Donna,â?? and the great early rocking pot boiler â??La Bambaâ??), J.P. â??The Big Bopperâ?? Richardson (who was a DJ, but also had had a hit with the song â??Chantilly Laceâ??), and 21-year-old Roger Peterson, who was the pilot of the aircraft. Hollyâ??s backup band, consisting of future country superstar-legend Waylon Jennings, opted for taking the tour bus, as the small plane could only seat four. In what turned out to be a cryptic bizarre dark turn of events, although at the time it was just considered harmless ribbing, The Big Bopper had asked Jennings (who originally was going to get on the plane) to let him go on the plane instead because he had flu-like symptoms and didnâ??t want to ride the icy coach which sported no heat. When Holly found out about the switch, he said to Jennings in jest, â??Well I hope your olâ?? bus freezes up,â?? to which Jennings responded, â??Well I hope your olâ?? plane crashes.â?? It became words that would haunt Jennings until his dying day back in 2002.
The cause of the crash, which was determined and ascertained by the Civil Aeronautics Board (which later became the National Transportation Safety Board) noted that it appeared that the pilot (Peterson) became visibly disoriented by the attitude indicator on the instrument panel, and lost control of the plane when the right wingâ??s tip of the aircraft hit the ground, causing the plane to spiral and finally land into a bean field nearby across the frozen landscape, killing all the men aboard. It was further found out via the thorough investigation that the pilot hadnâ??t had much experience flying in the wintery, weather conditions, which also was a direct cause of the crash.
The aftermath of the crash was an ominously sad time, in which the rock community and the many fans of the respective men and their talents were stunned and crushed, a heavy weight for all to endure indeed. It was also the first of these kind of, as the urban terms would later coin it, â??rock and roll deaths,â?? and an unfortunate pattern which other artists who later died in similar circumstances, like Otis Redding, Jim Croce, members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads, and music promoter kingpin Bill Graham among others, would follow by way of their own tragic circumstances.
The legacy of the three musicians was instantly propelled and thrust into legend upon their deaths, and their influence, especially Buddy Hollyâ??s, who was already a pioneer of the early days of rock and roll with his songs like â??Peggy Sue,â?? â??Thatâ??ll Be the Day,â?? â??Oh Boy,â?? and many others, became staples to the generations who followed him when he was alive, and especially to the generations he influenced in the wake of his death, and which continues on in todayâ??s musical climate. He became a figure both mythologized and lionized for his contributions to the musical community and how far his range, vision, and scope had reached. Thereâ??s no telling what other summits he may have achieved had he lived.
Of course, the dark day of the tragic events that occurred on February 3, 1959, have been immortalized bearing the title â??The Day the Music Died.â?? That banner headline comes from a song which spoke of the tragedy, the number one hit by folk singer/songwriter Don McLean, entitled â??American Pieâ?? (originally released in 1972) in which he used the tragedy as not only a metaphor for a chapter closing on American music that fateful day, but also as an allegory on a chapter turning in American history, a kind of innocence lost that the country and the world would experience again four years later, on November 22nd 1963, when President John F. Kennedy would be taken down by an assassinâ??s bullets in Dallas, Texas. The latter event also effectively turned another page on a sort of normalcy that the country experienced, and quickly thrusting it into a place in the coming years, where the unknown and intimidating factors of having to embrace that unknown, ultimately created positive and negative changes the likes of which were never seen again as the 1960s wore on.
So, although today is a sad remembrance of being the day the music died, it can also be used as a catalyst to resurrect the music, and being a day that the music gets re-born. Find and explore the magic and genius of Buddy Holly, marvel at the embryonic sounds that came out of him, which were ahead of its time. Aurally witness the soft, intense vocal strains from Ritchie Valens, one of the first Latin singing stars of all time, whose â??La Bambaâ?? in particular became an American classic and remains one to this day, always resurfacing in some form of media or another, and don an old weathered pair of â??bobby soxâ?? (ask your grandparents if they still have a pair) and get down to the good time strains of â??Chantilly Laceâ?? by The Big Bopper. But most of all, remember the timeless quality music has, that what gets recorded, and once it is recorded, never loses its intrinsic luster or its sheen or its sonic values. It always remains what it is and always will, even if the artists who created it have long since eroded, passed on, withered, dried up, or turned to metaphoric sands, by the passages of time.
Rediscover the greatness of the men who died today all those decades ago, or, if you havenâ??t familiarized yourself with their music, take a cue from a Buddy Holly song, in which he exclaims, â??You donâ??t know what youâ??ve been aâ??missing, Oh boy.â??
So, although today is a sad remembrance of being the day the music died, it can also be used as a catalyst to resurrect the music, and being a day that the music gets re-born. Find and explore the magic and genius of Buddy Holly, marvel at the embryonic sounds that came out of him, which were ahead of its time. Aurally witness the soft, intense vocal strains from Ritchie Valens, one of the first Latin singing stars of all time, whose â??La Bambaâ?? in particular became an American classic and remains one to this day, always resurfacing in some form of media or another, and don an old weathered pair of â??bobby soxâ?? (ask your grandparents if they still have a pair) and get down to the good time strains of â??Chantilly Laceâ?? by The Big Bopper. But most of all, remember the timeless quality music has, that what gets recorded, and once it is recorded, never loses its intrinsic luster or its sheen or its sonic values. It always remains what it is and always will, even if the artists who created it have long since eroded, passed on, withered, dried up, or turned to metaphoric sands, by the passages of time.