On February 3, 1959, musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson (along with pilot Roger Peterson) were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. The date became known as "The Day the Music Died." Holly was only 22 years old at the time, but he has had a lasting impact on music history. Here are a few things you might not know about Holly and his music on the 61st anniversary of his death.
1. Buddy Holly opened for Elvis Presley.
By the time he hit high school, Buddy Holly was playing guitar; by 1953, when he was only 17, he was playing regularly on radio in the country-and-western duo Buddy and Bob (Bob was Bob Montgomery, a friend from elementary school). On February 13, 1955, at the Fair Park Coliseum in Lubbock, Buddy and Bob opened for Elvis—with Holly borrowing Presley’s Martin guitar for the occasion. The pair would open for Presley twice more that year.
2. "Peggy Sue" was originally "Cindy Lou."
The single, released on September 20, 1957, first carried the moniker of Holly’s niece, Cindy Lou Kaiter. But Jerry Allison, The Crickets’s drummer who co-wrote the song (with Holly and Norman Petty), prevailed upon the others to name it after his girlfriend, Peggy Sue Gerron. Happy ending: Allison and Peggy Sue got married. Unhappy: they divorced in 1965.
