Today Is...Buddy Holly Killed In Plane Crash

Today in 1959 three musicians climbed onto a plane and if you know the song 'American Pie', you know what happened next although the lyrics don't mention underpants which is the reason why music died that day.
While on the Winter Dance Party Tour, the organisers added a last minute date on February 2 and Buddy Holly moaned that he had been wearing the same outfit for days and had run out of clean underpants so suggested he and his band charter a plane to get to the next city early to find a launderette.
In an early Final Destination type moment, Buddy's bassist kindly gave his seat to the Big Bopper Richardson as he had a cold and Ritchie Valens won a coin toss with Buddy's guitarist and took his seat.
Due to a combination of adverse weather conditions and an inexperienced pilot, fate stuck it's oar in and within minutes of taking off the scene was set for driving your Chevy to the levee to join them good ole boys drinking whisky and rye singing this'll be the day that I die.
Being the most famous of the three, Buddy Holly is the one usually most remembered for dying that day and we will never know just how well he would be viewed today if he hadn't died so young but how different it would have been if only he had brought an extra pair of underpants with him on that tour and not just for those three as some eerie consequences followed.
Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent had both earlier pulled out of the the ill-fated Winter Party Dance. On 17 April 1960, Cochran and Vincent were on their way to Heathrow Airport for a return flight to the U.S while on the way, the taxi they were travelling in blew a tyre and crashed into a lamp post. Vincent suffered permanent damage to his leg but Cochran was thrown from the vehicle and died the next day of massive head injuries aged 22, the same age as Buddy Holly at his death.
Singer Ronnie Smith was hired to replace Buddy Holly for the remainder of the 1959 Winter Dance Party. He was committed to a mental hospital complaining of disturbing visions of the dead Buddy Holly and in 1962, he hanged himself aged 24.
The Crickets brought in David Box as their new singer but he died in a plane crash in 1964, aged 22.
In 1967, on the eighth anniversary of Holly's death, Holly's recording engineer Joe Meek shot and killed his landlady and then turned the shotgun on himself.
In 1977, a film was made of Buddy Holly's life starring Gary Busey and written by Robert Gittler. After completing the film, Busey was involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident which left him with brain injuries. Gittler committed suicide shortly before the film's release.
On February 3, 1990, the thirty-first anniversary of Buddy Holly's fatal crash, Del Shannon performed at the Surf Ballroom Clear Lake, Iowa (the location of Holly's last performance). The Crickets acted as Shannon's backing band. Five days later, Shannon shot himself.