Buddy Holly Center Courtyard. The Buddy Holly Center offers free admission, as well as free trolley tours of various Holly-related sites in Lubbock, on February 3, "The Day the Music Died" (the day Holly was killed in an airplane crash along with Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson). The Center has also waived admission fees for other occasions, including for its participation in the City of Lubbock's First Friday Art Trail (on multiple occasions, including in August 2011, May 2015, and August 2015), as well as on the occasion of its 15th anniversary in September 2014. The Center has additionally hosted
Ritchie Valens Keane recommended shortening his surname to "Valens" from Valenzuela to widen his appeal beyond any obvious ethnic group. Valens demonstrated several songs in Keane's studio that he later recorded at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood. The demos primarily consisted of Valens singing and playing guitar, but some of them also featured drums. These originals can be heard on the Del-Fi album, "Ritchie Valens – The Lost Tapes". Two of the tracks laid down in Keane's studio were taken to Gold Star Studios and had additional instruments dubbed over to create full-band recordings. "Donna" was one track (although two other preliminary