Day the Music Died

As immortalized in Don Maclean's opus "American Pie", 47 years ago today was the "day the music died." Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper all died when their plane crashed on the way to a gig in Fargo, North Dakota.
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"The Winter Dance Party" was a tour that was set to cover 24 Midwest cities in three weeks. The problem was that the venues were not booked appropriately (i.e., according to the proximities of the venues to one another). For example, the tour would start at venue A, travel two hundred miles to venue B, and travel back one hundred seventy miles to venue C, which was only thirty miles from venue A. Adding to the disarray, the tour bus used to carry the musicians was ill-prepared for the weather; its heating system broke shortly after the tour began. One of the drummers may have developed frostbite while on the bus. The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa was never intended to be a stop on the tour, but promoters, hoping to fill an open date, called the manager of the ballroom at the time and offered him the show. He accepted and the date of the show was set for February 2. When Buddy Holly arrived at the ballroom that evening, he had had enough of the tour bus, and asked his band-mates that, once the show was over, they try to charter a plane to get to the next stop on the tour, which was the Moorhead, Minnesota Armory. The destination of the flight was the airport in Moorhead, MN. Arrangements were made for the plane, and Dwyer Flying Service got the charter. A fee of $36 per person was charged for the single engine Beechcraft Bonanza that could hold three people, plus its pilot. The Big Bopper had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. When Buddy heard about this, his reply to Waylon was "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up!", to which Waylon replied, "Well, I hope your plane crashes!" This trade of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for many years afterward. Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane before, and asked Buddy's remaining bandmate on the plane, Tommy Allsup, for the seat. Tommy said "I'll flip ya for the remaining seat". Contrary to what is seen in biographical movies, that coin toss did not happen at the airport shortly before takeoff, nor was Buddy Holly the one that tossed it. The toss happened at the ballroom shortly before departure to the airport, and the coin itself was tossed by a deejay that was working the show that night. On the toss of that coin, Ritchie won a seat on the plane. Dion of Dion & The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride.

(via Wikipedia)