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 June, 1958. It slowly began picking up airplay through July and August, and reached #6 on the pop charts spending 22 weeks in the national Top 40. In "Chantilly Lace", Richardson pretends to have a flirting phone conversation with his girlfriend; the record was comical in nature, with The Big Bopper presenting an exaggerated, but good-natured caricature of a ladies' man. In November 1958, he scored a second hit, a raucous novelty tune entitled "The Big Bopper's Wedding", in which Richardson pretends to be getting cold feet at the altar. Both "Chantilly Lace" and "Big Bopper's Wedding" were receiving top