Dion DiMucci with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), Frankie Sardo, and other performers. On February 3, 1959, after a concert stop in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly and others decided to charter a flight to the next venue rather than travel on the tour bus. Dion was invited to accompany the group but decided that he did not want to spend $36 for the flight, as it was the same monthly rent his parents paid for his childhood apartment and he couldn't justify the indulgence. The plane crashed, killing all on board: Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the pilot Roger
The Big Bopper June, 1958. It slowly began picking up airplay through July and August, and reached #6 on the pop charts spending 22 weeks in the national Top 40. In "Chantilly Lace", Richardson pretends to have a flirting phone conversation with his girlfriend; the record was comical in nature, with The Big Bopper presenting an exaggerated, but good-natured caricature of a ladies' man. In November 1958, he scored a second hit, a raucous novelty tune entitled "The Big Bopper's Wedding", in which Richardson pretends to be getting cold feet at the altar. Both "Chantilly Lace" and "Big Bopper's Wedding" were receiving top