Moorhead, Minnesota 1978 film "The Buddy Holly Story" as the next stop in the ill-fated Winter Dance Party tour. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash "en route" to their scheduled performance at the Moorhead Armory Building from Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3, 1959. Moorhead's pioneer Prairie Home Cemetery on 8th Street was the inspiration for the name of Garrison Keillor's national radio program, "A Prairie Home Companion". Although Keillor thought the cemetery was founded by Norwegian Lutherans, in fact it was organized in 1875 by the Rev. Oscar Elmer, a Yankee Presbyterian minister who
Buddy Holly released his album "Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s", paying tribute to the new wave of singer-songwriters in the Village during that pivotal, post-Holly era. The album opens with Barone's version of "Learning the Game", one of the final songs written and recorded by Holly at his home in Greenwich Village, a week before his death. Holly's life story inspired a Hollywood biographical film, "The Buddy Holly Story" (1978); its lead actor Gary Busey received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Holly. The film was widely criticized by the rock press,