Bobby Vee Meets the Crickets the position of lead singer with the group in 1961. He would remain through early 1965. Tommy Allsup, the guitarist who had toured with Holly during the fateful Winter Dance Party frequently played with the band. Singing star and Liberty records artist Bobby Vee had a number of connections with Holly and the Crickets. After Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in the tragic February 1959 plane crash, Fargo, North Dakota teenager Bobby Vee was among several local young musicians recruited to join the rest of the Winter Dance Party tour, beginning with the next scheduled
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