The Big Bopper 40 radio airplay through January, 1959. With the success of "Chantilly Lace", Richardson took time off from KTRM radio and joined Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts for a "Winter Dance Party" tour starting on January 23, 1959. On the 11th night of the tour (February 2, 1959), they played at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. That night, Holly chartered an airplane from Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa, intending to fly himself and his bandmates Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup to their next tour venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. The musicians had been traveling
The Big Bopper "Running Bear", but the recording was not released until August 1959, six months after his death. The song became a #1 hit for three weeks in January 1960. The man who launched Richardson as a recording artist was Harold "Pappy" Daily from Houston. Daily was promotion director for Mercury and Starday Records and signed Richardson to Mercury. Richardson's first single, "Beggar to a King", had a country flavor, but failed to gain any chart action. He soon cut "Chantilly Lace" as "The Big Bopper" for Pappy Daily's D label. Mercury bought the recording and released it at the end of