The Day the Music Died

Copyright © 2010 by Les MacDonald.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any

information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

The quote Where memories linger … love remains and also the poem My Heart Hurts

are copyrighted by Kimberly Lemmen and are printed here with her permission.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I

1791

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Part II

1959

Buddy Holly,

Ritchie Valens, And The

Big Bopper

Part III

1960-1969

Jesse Belvin

Eddie Cochran

Stuart Sutcliffe

Patsy Cline

Sam Cooke

Bobby Fuller

Brian Epstein

Otis Redding

Frankie Lymon

Malcolm Hale

Martin Lamble

Brian Jones

Part IV

1970-1979

Alan Wilson

Jimi Hendrix

Janis Joplin

Jim Morrin

King Curtis

Duane Allman /

Berry Oakley

Les Harvey

Brian Cole

Rory Storm

Billy Murcia

Clarence White

Paul Williams

Gram Parsons

Jim Croce And

Maury Muehleisen

John Rostill

Bobby Darin

Mama Cass Elliot

Pete Ham / Tom Evans

Al Jackson Jr.

Gary Thain

Florence Ballard

Paul Kossoff

Tommy Bolin

Elvis Presley

Marc Bolan

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Terry Kath

Sandy Denny

Keith Moon

Donny Hathaway

Sid Vicious

Jimmy Mcculloch

Part V

1980-1989

Bon Scott

Ian Curtis

John Bonham

Darby Crash

John Lennon /

George Harrison

Bob Marley / Pete Tosh

Harry Chapin

Randy Rhoads

Karen Carpenter

James Honeyman /

Pete Farndon

Felix Pappalardi

Dennis Wilson /

Carl Wilson

Marvin Gaye

Ricky Nelson

Lenny Breau

Cliff Burton

Gary Driscoll

Roy Orbison

Vincent Crane

Pete De Frietas /

Jake Brockman

Part VI

1990-1999

Del Shannon

Cornelius Gunter

Andrew Wood

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Steve Clark

Steve Marriott

Freddie Mercury

Mia Zapata

Frank Zappa

Michael Clarke

Harry Nilsson

Kurt Cobain

Selena

Jerry Garcia /

Ron Plgpen Mckernan /

Keith Godchaux /

Brent Mydland /

Vlnce Welnick

Shannon Hoon

Brad Nowell

Tupac Shakur

The Notorious B.I.G.

John Denver

Michael Hutchence

Falco

Cozy Powell

Part VII

2000-2009

Kirsty Maccoll

Layne Staley

Joey Ramone /

Dee Dee Ramone /

Johnny Ramone

Robbin Crosby

John Entwistle

Howie Epstein

Robert Palmer

Dimebag Darrell Abbot

Paul Hester

Bryan Harvey

Brad Delp

Jeff Healey

Gidget Gein

Michael Jackson

Part VIII

The 27 Club And The

Monterey Pop Festival:

Curse Or Coincidence?

DEDICATION

Amy Leigh Lemmen

On March 1, 2003, three-year-old Amy Lemmen passed away from a sudden and severe bout of pneumonia. The Day the Music Died is lovingly dedicated to beautiful little Amy, who lit up the lives of her mom and dad and everyone else that she came in contact with during her short life. It’s also for her parents (Kimberly and Wayne), sister (Paige), and brother (Adam), who strive to keep the memory of their precious Amy alive and for parents everywhere who have lost a child. Where memories linger … love remains.

My Heart Hurts

Kimberly Lemmen

March 3, 2003

My heart hurts now, my little one

I’m overcome with pain

Knowing that your lovely smile

I’ll never see again

All our friends and family

Are so very empty too

Knowing that they’ll never have

Another hug from you

The ways you’d dance, songs you’d sing

You were so very smart

I have to tell you honestly

The pain it hurts my heart

Your happiness and laughter

All you had to give

Are memories I now cherish

Of the three years you did live

Now, my little angel

Please know Mommy will be okay

By remembering your love for us

Each and every day

Donations may be made in Amy’s name to The Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation 4th Floor, 11402 University Ave. Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J3 Canada

and

STARS Air Ambulance Building #16, 29 Airport Rd. Edmonton, Alberta T5G OW6 Canada

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take the time to thank a few of the people who helped me at some point along the way. All of your contributions and friendships are greatly appreciated. Special thanks to Kimberly and Wayne Lemmen, Paige Lemmen, and Adam Lemmen for sharing their memories of Amy Leigh. Also, special thanks to my son, Tristan MacDonald, who was with me every step of the way as always. Thanks to Jil Brody, Karen Casselman, Debie Chavez, Carol Ebbe, Hari Georgeson, James Johnson, Donna Jones, Sheilagh May Joseph, Ken and Ruby MacDonald, Alex Mays, Leah Oppeboen McBride, Herb and Cheryl Mowat, Andrea Niemann, Teresa O’Grady, Cyndi Pratt, Roger Rolen, Anne Rule, Francine Sim, Terri Sperling, Tim Solleveld, Maarit Tonteri, Brenda Whelan, Wendy Worden, and Tracy Young.

Also, thanks to the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas, Hooters Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, the Winnipeg Millennium Library, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Seattle Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. My thanks also to Rey August, Kay Benavides, Cleofe Faelnar, Riki Sayon and everyone else at Xlibris Publishing for all of their help.

INTRODUCTION

Music has the ability to stir our emotions. It can make us laugh; it can make us cry. Many of us associate songs with memories. A golden oldie might remind us of an old flame. Certain songs will take us back to a different time—a different place. Unfortunately, the same can be said when one of our favorites passes away. Many of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Same thing with the murders of RFK and MLK or Princess Diana in that auto accident back in 1997. It’s the same with our favorite entertainers. Being a huge Beatles fan, I will never forget the night of December 8, 1980, and hearing about the murder of John Lennon from Howard Cosell during a Patriots/Dolphins Monday-night football game. On August 16, 1977, I was in my dad’s car with both my mom and dad when we heard the news on the radio that Elvis was gone. I’m sure I’ll never forget sitting in the little Tropicana sports book in Las Vegas with my son Tristan on June 25, 2009, and hearing the stunning news of Michael Jackson’s sudden death.

In this book, I’ve tried to highlight some of the lives and deaths that have occurred in the music industry throughout the years. While some of our favorites may have lost their way at some point during their lifetimes, we must remember that there is one thing that the passage of time cannot erase … and that, my friends, is the music!

Les MacDonald Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada May 27, 2010

Part I

1791

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

The Day the Music Died—December 5, 1791

Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. His father, Leopold, was in charge of the court orchestra of the archbishop of Salzburg and took great delight in giving his children keyboard lessons. By the time he was five years old, young Wolfgang was already composing on his own.

When Wolfgang was just six years old, Leopold would take his son on a concert tour that would last well over three years. The child prodigy played concerts in Munich, Paris, London, and The Hague. It was in London that Wolfgang would meet Johann Christian Bach (son of composer Johann Sebastien Bach), who would go on to be a major musical influence on Mozart. After a year back at home in Salzburg, Leopold would once again hit the road with his son in another attempt to showcase his talent. The pair spent a year and a half in Italy, at which time Wolfgang wrote and performed an opera at the age of fourteen. In 1773, Mozart would return home to Salzburg, finding employment as a court musician. He continued to compose during this time, writing operas and piano concertos. In 1775, while still just nineteen years old, he began composing a series of five violin concertos. Although the young composer had many friends in Salzburg, he was not happy. His dream was to make a living writing operas, but Salzburg provided little opportunity.

Mozart continued to look for work with trips to Paris and Munich in 1777 and 1778, but nothing came of these attempts. Back in Salzburg, Leopold was able to get Wolfgang work as an organist for archbishop Colloredo’s court; however, in 1781, he had a major falling out with the archbishop. It is unclear whether Mozart resigned his position or was dismissed by the archbishop, but whatever the reason, it did not sit too well with Leopold, who demanded that his son return to Salzburg. Instead, Wolfgang headed to Vienna where he found work as a concert pianist and found time to complete another opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio. Critics raved, and Mozart was now known as one of Europe’s finest composers. At this time, he met and married

Constance Weber. By now, Mozart had developed friendships with other well-known composers of the time such as Bach, George Frideric Handel, and Joseph Haydn. Mozart wrote six quartets dedicated to Haydn, prompting the classical composer to tell Leopold that his son was the greatest of all the composers.

After a period of great success in the mid 1780s, which included the writing of the operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, Mozart would fall on hard times financially. Austria was at war with the Ottoman Empire, and the country had little money to spend on music. Trips to Germany in 1789 and 1790 did little to turn around his fortunes, and the composer became depressed. He bounced back in 1791, composing what many consider to be his greatest opera, The Magic Flute. His finances were improving, in part to him composing and selling some dance music, and also because of the popularity of his new opera. While in Prague for the premiere, he became ill with a bout of influenza. He still managed to conduct the premiere of The Magic Flute but became much more ill several weeks later. At this time, Mozart was also working on his latest opera, Requiem. It would prove to be one of his finest works even though the composer himself was unable to complete it before his death. There is great debate about how Requiem was finished and by who, but it seems most likely that it was completed by Franz Xaver Sussmayr who was a student of the composer. There is also much debate about the composer’s death. Some attribute it to influenza and others to a severe case of rheumatic fever. It was almost certainly not the result of murder by an envious rival composer as put forth in the Academy Award-winning movie Amadeus, which won best picture of 1984.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the world’s greatest composer of many concertos, symphonies, and operas, was thirty-five years old on the day the music died. He was buried in a common grave in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria.

Part II

1959

BUDDY HOLLY,

RITCHIE VALENS, AND THE

BIG BOPPER

The Day the Music Died—February 3, 1959

Buddy Holly

Buddy was born as Charles Hardin Holley on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. Very early in life, Buddy (as he was called by his family) learned how to play the piano and the guitar. In his teens, he teamed up with pal Bob Montgomery, singing duets at clubs and schools.

The early fifties saw a bit of a lull in the music business. Even the singing career of former teen idol Frank Sinatra had slowed down as fads and styles were changing. By the mid-fifties, the music industry needed a boost, and that boost was provided with the arrival of Elvis Presley. Elvis brought energy and excitement to the music scene. None of this was lost on Buddy, who, up till then, had played mostly bluegrass and a little rockabilly. The future King of Rock and Roll played three shows in Buddy’s hometown—one on January 6 and two on February 13, 1955. It is said that Buddy was in the audience for at least one of these shows and that the concert had a profound influence on him and the path that his career would take. After seeing Elvis, Buddy turned his attention to rock and roll. When Elvis once again came to Lubbock on October 15, 1955, it was Buddy Holly who opened the show. Based on this live appearance, Buddy was signed to a contract by Decca Records. Decca misspelled Holley as Holly on the contract, and Charles Hardin Holley was reborn as Buddy Holly.

Success came fast, and just several months after signing the contract, Buddy had a hit single on his hands with That’ll Be the Day. A second album was released in February 1958, which spawned two more hit singles, Peggy Sue and Oh Boy! In June of the same year, Buddy met Maria Santiago, and it was love at first sight. In fact, it was on their first date that Buddy actually proposed. Just two months after that first date, the pair was married. The sky was the limit for Buddy Holly when he was signed to go on tour as part of the Winter Dance Party in January 1959.

Ritchie Valens

Richard Steven Valenzuela was born in Los Angeles on May 13, 1941. Like Buddy Holly, Ritchie was making music at a very early age. By his early teens, Ritchie was already proficient on guitar, trumpet, and drums. He joined a local LA band known as the Silhouettes in October 1957. Ritchie was only sixteen years old, and already, there was a buzz about the young musician. By May of 1958, that buzz had reached the ears of Bob Keane, who was the owner of a Hollywood record company known as Del-Fi Records. Ritchie was invited to Keane’s home for an audition, and based on that audition, he was signed to a contract. Also, like Buddy Holly, a name change was in order, and Richard Valenzuela became Ritchie Valens. Ritchie had some modest success with a couple of singles but then came a double A-side single featuring Donna and La Bamba. They both received a lot of airplay and became huge hits for Ritchie. No one would ever have guessed at the time that they would be his last.

By mid-1958, Ritchie had left high school to go on tour. He appeared several times on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and also shared the stage in Hawaii with Buddy Holly and Paul Anka. It looked like Ritchie Valens was a lock for stardom when in January 1959, he was signed to do the Winter Dance Party.

The Big Bopper

Jiles Perry Richardson Jr. was born on October 24, 1930, and spent most of his early life in Beaumont, Texas. He worked part time as a DJ at a local radio station while going to college but gave up on school when the station offered him a full-time gig. In 1955, Uncle Sam came calling, and JP or Jape, as his friends called him, answered the call. He spent the next two years as a radar instructor at Fort Bliss, Texas.

Once out of the army, JP returned to radio. His bigger-than-life personality played well on radio, and he was quickly promoted from DJ to supervisor and then became the station’s program director. Kids at the time were doing a new dance called the Bop, so JP decided to adopt the moniker and became the Big Bopper. The Big Bopper wrote hit songs for the likes of Johnny Preston and country star George Jones. In 1958, he was signed to a contract by Mercury Records and, in the summer of that year, recorded Chantilly Lace, which would become his biggest hit. In order to capitalize on the success of Chantilly Lace, JP took a leave of absence from the radio station to go on tour. He was promptly signed to join the Winter Dance Party.

The Winter Dance Party

The Winter Dance Party was a rock and roll tour that crisscrossed the midwestern United States for twenty-four shows in twenty-four nights. The tour included some of rock and roll’s most popular acts of the time. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, along with Dion and the Belmonts and several

others, were all signed to appear. The singers all travelled on a tour bus that constantly broke down. Most of the time the heaters weren’t working, and a few of the musicians caught bad colds and/or the flu. In the worst cases, there was even a few who had minor frostbite. This was the state of affairs when the Winter Dance Party hit Clear Lake, Iowa, for the eleventh show of the tour. By this time, Buddy Holly had seen enough. He decided to charter a plane (a single-engine four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza) to fly them to Fargo, North Dakota, which was right next door to Moorhead, Minnesota, the next stop on the tour. Waylon Jennings, who played with Buddy Holly and would go on to become a country music star, was to be on the plane with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the pilot, Roger Peterson. This is where fate would intervene. The Big Bopper had a terrible cold combined with the flu and couldn’t face another night on the frozen bus. He begged Jennings for his seat on the plane, and Waylon graciously gave up his seat to the Big Bopper. Tommy Allsup and Ritchie Valens ended up tossing a coin to see who would ride on the plane. Valens won the toss and took his seat on the plane. Old friends Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly shared a quick exchange before each one boarded their modes of transportation. Buddy told Jennings that he hoped the old bus broke down while Jennings told Buddy that he hoped his damn plane crashed. Even though they were joking, it’s something that Jennings felt guilty about for the rest of his life.

At approximately 1:00 AM on the morning of February 3, 1959, the plane took off into a raging snowstorm. The pilot, Roger Peterson, was only twenty-one years old and inexperienced and should not have been flying that night, especially into the teeth of a storm. When the plane hadn’t reached Fargo by 3:30 AM, a search was organized. Jerry Dwyer, the owner of Dwyer Flying Services who Buddy had chartered the plane from, found the plane in a cornfield not even five miles from the airport. Buddy, Ritchie, and JP had all been thrown from the crash while the pilot had been pinned inside. All were killed instantly. Rock and roll had just suffered its first casualties.

The 1959 crash site

The Buddy Holly Story was made in 1978 with Gary Busey playing the title role. Busey was nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of the singer. The movie did pick up an Oscar for Best Musical Score. Lou Diamond Phillips played Ritchie Valens in 1987’s La Bamba. That film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture. February 3, 1959, was immortalized as the day the music died in Don McLean’s 1972 hit, American Pie.

For many years, there had been rumors about what occurred on board the plane that night. Buddy was supposed to have owned a gun, and there were whispers of gunplay on board. In 2007, Jay Richardson, the Big Bopper’s son, decided to have his father’s remains exhumed to determine the cause of death. When the casket was opened, a remarkably well-preserved JP Richardson lay there with his trademark fifties-style haircut. Forty-eight years after the crash, an autopsy was performed. The Big Bopper suffered massive fractures from head to toe, and there was absolutely no evidence of foul play.

Ironically, the original Winter Dance Party had one open date. That date was February 2. Instead of leaving that date open, the promoters offered it to the owners of the Surf