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Buddy Holly — 1959 Winter Dance Party Tour
The ill-fated tour began on 23 January 1959 in Milwaukee
23 January, 1959 was the start of the “Winter Dance Party” rock’n’roll tour and its first show would be at the Million Dollar Ballroom in Milwaukee. The tour was scheduled for 24 dates, ending on 15 February, and followed a gruelling schedule with gigs every night across three states, in towns and cities that were often hundreds of miles apart.
Yet despite the freezing temperatures of these Midwest states close to the Great Lakes, thousands of fans still turned out and paid the $1.50 admission to see the shows.
It could be described as the tour from hell, as everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The worst of it was when the three headliners Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens. and The Big Bopper, JP Richardson were killed in a plane crash on February 3.
Even before that catastrophic event, the omens weren’t good. They were booked on one of the most poorly organized tours in the history of rock music.
The buses, which were old worn out Trailways passenger buses, broke down regularly. Five were replaced, and with heaters not working properly, the acts resorted to burning newspapers in the aisles to try to keep warm.
They were facing some of the coldest weather on record, with the temperature during the early hours of February 1 down to 35 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. This was when Buddy’s drummer, Carl Bunch, was hospitalized with badly frostbitten feet, and lost to the tour.
Two of Buddy’s former group, ‘The Crickets’, drummer Jerry Allison and bassist Joe B. Mauldin had decided to take a break from touring and not accompany him this time. So Buddy had brought other musicians into his band — Waylon Jennings on bass, Carl Bunch on drums, and Tommy Allsup as lead guitarist.
Waylon was Buddy’s protege, and he’d recorded and produced Waylon’s first record a few months before in Clovis, New Mexico, at the Norman Petty studio. Waylon would become one of the biggest stars in Country music. Tommy Allsup would become a phenomenal session guitarist, playing on over 6,500 records in his career.
