The Big Bopper performing his hit song "Chantilly Lace," with an introduction by Dick Clark.
The American disc jockey, singer, and songwriter known as "The Big Bopper" was born Jiles Perry ("JP") Richardson, Jr. (October 24, 1930 February 3, 1959). He took the name "Big Bopper" from a dance popular among students called "The Bop". His big voice and exuberant personality an early rock and roll star.
The Big Bopper is best known for his recording of "Chantilly Lace", which was released 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 call with his girlfriend; the Mansfield record suggests what his girlfriend might have been saying at the other end of the line.
JP Richardson is credited with coining the term music video in 1959, and recorded an early example himself. However, his business venture in this area was cut short by his untimely death. With the success of "Chantilly Lace", Richardson took time off from KTRM radio and joined Buddy Holly and The Crickets, Ritchie Valens and Dion & the Belmonts for a "Winter Dance Party" tour. On February 2, 1959, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him, Tommy Allsup, and Waylon Jennings to Fargo, North Dakota. Richardson was suffering from the flu and didn't feel comfortable on the group's bus. Jennings agreed to give up his plane seat to Richardson. Valens had never flown in a small plane and requested Allsup's seat. They flipped a coin, and Valens won the toss.
Early on the morning of February 3, 1959, after a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the small four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza took off from the Mason City airport during a blinding snow storm. It crashed into Albert Juhls corn field several miles after takeoff at 1:05 a.m. The crash killed all aboard: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Richardson and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. In his 1971 hit song "American Pie," Don McLean referred to this crash in his song as "The Day the Music Died".
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