Eddie Cochran on "Summertime Blues". The recordings were issued on the album "A Gene Vincent Record Date". In early 1959 two of Cochran's friends, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, along with the Big Bopper, were killed in a plane crash while on tour. Cochran's friends and family later said that he was badly shaken by their deaths, and he developed a morbid premonition that he also would die young. It was shortly after their deaths that he recorded a song (written by disc jockey Tommy Dee) in tribute to them, "Three Stars". He was anxious to give up life on the road
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