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
Buddy Holly Center Buddy Holly Center The Buddy Holly Center is a performance and visual arts center in Lubbock, Texas, dedicated to Buddy Holly as well as the music of Lubbock and West Texas more broadly. The building in which it is located opened as the city's Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway depot in 1928. In 1996, the City of Lubbock obtained a sizable collection of Holly-related artifacts from his estate, and the next year it purchased the former depot. In 1999, the new Buddy Holly Center opened as the home of the newly acquired Buddy Holly collection as well as