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
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