Waylon Jennings is buried a mile from my house, at a cemetery in Mesa. "It's almost like there is a competition to see who is the biggest Buddy Holly fan," said Lehmer, whose book on "American Bandstand" is due out this spring. The number of and passion of Holly fans surprised Lehmer as it helped him sell books. If the Big Bopper, as most believe, was in the back, then the Bonanza's center of gravity could have been beyond allowable limits, creating handling problems for Peterson.Īn effort has been made to have the National Transportation Safety Board reinvestigate the plane crash, particularly based on the balance issue and potential mechanical failure. Perhaps more plausible is the question of whether the small plane was properly balanced depending where Holly (145 pounds) and Richardson (perhaps as much as 210) were sitting. His detailed work includes the Civil Aeronautics Board report on the crash that found the probable cause to be pilot error for attempting a flight "which would necessitate flying solely on instruments when he (21-year-old Peterson) was not properly certificated or qualified to do so." That riddle consumed much of Lehmer's life for close to two decades until "The Day the Music Died" was published. "I didn't know where Clear Lake was or why they would be there. "I had no idea musicians of that stature were traveling in small planes around the Midwest," he says.
Lehmer was a 13-year-old growing up near Council Bluffs, Iowa, when Holly's plane went down some 250 miles away. MORE: 'American Pie' isn't a song about Buddy Holly, Don McLean says John Mueller, who played Holly in the musical, has ongoing life in the role with the Winter Dance Party, a re-creation of the 1959 tour that still earns positive reviews after a decade of performances. Larry Lehmer expanded on his newspaper reporting about Holly and the Winter Dance Party tour for the Des Moines Register to produce "The Day the Music Died" in 1997, a year after Phillip Norman's Holly biography "Rave On." Teenagers crowded around the stage depending on their level of interest in each of the Winter Dance Party performers, but most were there to dance. "I think it was probably one of the largest crowds they ever had, something like 1,500 people." "Me and a bunch of guys drove over in my '52 Plymouth," Evans said. He'd been to the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake for dances before and figured $1.25 for admission to see Buddy Holly and the host of other performers was well worth a 13-mile drive, even on a school night. Mike Evans was 17 and a senior at Mason City High School, Class of 1959. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. "Then out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. "I was only six feet away," Dylan said in his Nobel lecture. The 17-year-old Robert Zimmerman, soon to change his name to Bob Dylan, was up front in rapt attention. 31, 1959, three days before the crash killing Holly. The Winter Dance Party tour played at the National Guard Armory in Duluth, Minnesota, on Jan.
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