Ritchie Valens decided to join his first big tour, The Winter Dance Party, with big name artists such as Buddy Holly, and J.P Richardson also known as “The Big Bopper”. They were to do a tour over the northern Midwestern states such as Wisconsin, Iowa the Dakotas aand such forth. During winter those states become very cold, dropping to temperatures below zero. The various artists on the tour traveled to there concerts by bus, every night. During these travels the bus’s heating was broken, so many of the players got really sick including Ritchie. One of the guys even got frost bite and was sent to the hospital. On Febuary.2, 1959 Buddy Holly chartered a plane to fly three singers to Fargo, North Dakota the same night just after they finished a show in Clear Lake, Iowa. Even though Ritchie was scared to fly he didn’t want to travel in that cold bus anymore. So he and Tommy Allsop flipped a coin and Ritchie won it. They got on the plane and took off early in the morning around 1 on Febuary.3, 1959.The weather was horrible. After the airport lost contact with the plane shortly after, they decided to wait until morning. Maybe the weather was blocking their signal. The airport called the other port where they were supposed to land and no sign of the plane from them as well. They decided to follow the plane’s route as much as they had and soon after they found a demolished hunk of metal lying on the snowy ground of the local farms (Lehmer). The breathless bodies of Buddy Holly, J.P Richardson and Ritchie were found scattered around the crash scene.  |  The Big Bopper(left) Ritchie Valens(Middle) and Buddy Holly(right) taking a picture together during The Winter Dance Party.It was a sad day for the music industry and was even named as “The Day The Music Died”. Ritchie Valens was still seventeen years old when he died. Ironically before he went on the tour his aunt begged him to get insurance and Ritchie replied “If the plane crashes in the water I’ll use my guitar as a boat. If it lands in the snow, I’ll use my guitar as a sled”. Shots of the crash scene tooken on the morning the plane crashed..jpg) Ritchie Valens's grave |
