Buddy Holly his second appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in January 1958 and soon after, toured Australia and then the UK. In early 1959, he assembled a new band, consisting of future country music star Waylon Jennings (bass), famed session musician Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums), and embarked on a tour of the midwestern U.S. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, he chartered an airplane to travel to his next show, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson in a tragedy later referred to by
The Killer Rocks On Richardson, better known as the Big Bopper, who perished in a plane crash with Buddy Holly in 1959. Lewis had his doubts about recording the song but, as he explains in the "A Half Century of Hits" essay, his manager convinced him: “Sam Phillips’s brother, Jud, was managing me. He was well oiled on that session...I told him I didn’t even know 'Chantilly Lace.' He said, ‘Well, make it up.’ I did one take on it.” Producer Jerry Kennedy recalled of the sessions to Lewis biographer Nick Tosches, "He wanted everybody there. He didn't want anything overdubbed later. It was