Jiles Perry J. P. Richardson, Jr., commonly known as The Big Bopper, was born 84 years ago today. A disc jockey, singer and songwriter whose big voice and exuberant personality made him an early rock and roll star, Richardson is best known for his recording of Chantilly Lace.” On February 3, 1959, a day that has become known as The Day the Music Died (from Don McLeans song American Pie), Richardson was killed in a plane crash in Iowa, along with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and pilot Roger Peterson. J. P. Richardson was born in Sabine Pass, Texas, the oldest son of oil-field worker Jiles Perry Richardson, Sr. and his wife Elise (Stalsby) Richardson. Richardson had two younger brothers, Cecil and James. The family soon moved to Beaumont, Texas. Richardson graduated from Beaumont High School in 1947 and played on the Royal Purple football team as a defensive lineman, wearing number 85. He later studied pre-law at Lamar College, and was a member of the band and chorus. Richardson worked part-time at Beaumont, Texas radio station KTRM (now KZZB). He was hired by the station full-time in 1949 and quit college. Richardson married Adrianne Joy Fryou on April 18, 1952 and their daughter Debra Joy was born in December 1953, soon after Richardson was promoted to Supervisor of Announcers at KTRM. In March 1955, he was drafted into the United States Army and did his basic training at Fort Ord, California. He spent the rest of his two-years service as a radar instructor at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Following his discharge as a corporal in March 1957, Richardson returned to KTRM radio, where he held down the Dishwashers Serenade shift from 11 AM to 12:30 PM, Monday through Friday. One of the stations sponsors wanted Richardson for a new time slot and suggested an idea for a show. Richardson had seen the college students doing a dance called The Bop, and he decided to call himself The Big Bopper. His new radio show ran from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm Richardson soon became the stations program director. In May 1957, he broke the record for continuous on-air broadcasting by 8 minutes. From a remote setup in the lobby of the Jefferson Theatre in downtown Beaumont, Richardson performed for a total of five days, two hours and eight minutes, playing 1,821 records and taking showers during 5-minute newscasts. Richardson is credited for creating the first music video in 1958, and recorded an early example himself. Richardson — who played guitar — began his musical career as a songwriter. George Jones later recorded Richardsons White Lightning, which became Jones first #1 country hit in 1959 (#73 on the pop charts). Richardson also wrote Running Bear for Johnny Preston, his friend from Port Arthur, Texas. The inspiration for the song came from Richardsons childhood memory of the Sabine River, where he heard stories about Indian tribes. Richardson sang background on Running Bear, but the recording wasnt released until September 1959, after his death. Within several months it became #1. The man who launched Richardson as a recording artist was Harold Pappy Daily from Houston, Texas. Daily was promotion director for Mercury and Starday Records and signed Richardson to Mercury. Richardsons first single, Beggar To A King, had a country flavor, but failed to gain any chart action. He soon cut Chantilly Lace as The Big Bopper for Pappy Dailys D label. Mercury bought the recording and released it in the summer of 1958. It reached #6 on the pop charts and spent 22 weeks in the national Top 40. It also inspired an answer record by Jayne Mansfield titled That Makes It. In Chantilly Lace, Richardson pretends to have a flirting phone conversation with his girlfriend; the Mansfield record suggests what his girlfriend might have been saying at the other end of the line. Later that year, he scored a second hit, a raucous novelty tune entitled The Big Boppers Wedding, in which Richardson pretends to be getting cold feet at the altar. 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. On the eleventh night of the tour, Holly chartered an airplane to fly them to the next show in Moorhead, Minnesota. The musicians had been traveling by bus for over a week, and it had already broken down once. They were tired, they had not been paid yet and all of their clothes were dirty. With the airplane, Holly could arrive early, do everyones laundry and get some rest. Roger Peterson, the 21-year old pilot, had agreed to take the singers to Fargo, North Dakota, where the airport serves the cities of Moorhead and Fargo. A snowstorm was inbound, and the pilot was fatigued from a 17-hour workday, but agreed to fly the trip. The musicians packed up their instruments and finalized the flight arrangements. Buddy Hollys bass player, Waylon Jennings, was scheduled to fly on the plane, but gave his seat up to the Big Bopper, who was suffering from influenza. Hollys guitarist, Tommy Allsup, agreed to flip a coin with Ritchie Valens for the remaining seat; Valens won. The three musicians boarded the red and white single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza at the Mason City Airport around 12:30 AM on February 3. Snow blew across the runway, but the sky was clear. Peterson received clearance from the control tower, taxied down the runway and took off. He was never told of two weather advisories that warned of an oncoming blizzard ahead. The plane remained airborne only a few minutes; no one is sure what went wrong. The best guess is Peterson flew directly into the blizzard, lost visual reference and accidentally flew down instead of up. The four-passenger plane plowed into a cornfield at over 220 mph, flipping over on itself and tossing the passengers into the air. The bodies of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were jettisoned from the plane, landed yards from the wreckage and lay there for ten hours as snowdrifts formed around them. Roger Petersons body was not jettisoned from the plane. Because of the weather, no one reached the crash site until later in the morning. Here’s “The Big Bopper” performing “Chantilly Lace” in 1958.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:06:01 +0000
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