Performer Gave Up His Seat On Doomed Flight

Accounts of the legendary "day the music died," and the fatal plane crash that took the lives of a pilot and three young performers are many as we look back from 50 years later.

According to the Palm Beach Post, one man's perspective is a bit more unique than most -- had he not given up his seat, he would have been on that tragic flight. The man is Dion DiMucci, leader of doo-wop group Dion and The Belmonts.

In early 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and Dion and The Belmonts were on the Winter Dance Party tour, playing gigs all across the Midwest. "Rock and roll wasn't a business. We were inventing it," Dion says. "It was very new. We didn't have any light shows. We just turned on the lights and turned on the mic."

On the night of February 2, Holly was fed up with traveling around from town to town in freezing cold buses, and arranged to charter a Beechcraft B35 Bonanza to the next gig. The Big Bopper was in, too, leaving the third seat up for grabs. Dion says he won the coin toss, but gave up his seat to Valens.

Dion remembers telling Valens, who was sick and unaccustomed to the cold Midwest winter, " 'You need to get a hot bath and a warm room. You go.' I was in a group, and he was alone out there. I think I'm doing him a favor..." His voice trails off.

As the fated young performers headed to the airport, the rest of the entourage loaded up on the icy yellow school buses and headed off to Fargo ND, their next stop along the way.

Tour manager Sam Geller broke the tragic news to the others on the tour the next morning at a Fargo motel. "He came over to us as we were walking in with our suits hanging in bags over our shoulders and said, 'Hey, guys, something terrible happened. Their plane crashed. They're all gone.' "

"I remember just sitting there alone on the bus, and Buddy's guitar was on the back seat, Ritchie's outfit was hanging from the luggage rack ... There was the Big Bopper's hat, just sitting there," Dion says. "It was baffling to me. You just wonder what life is about, where you're going, what does it matter? My mind started spinning."

"They were so much a part of my life," Dion reflected from his home in Boca Raton, FL. "I didn't realize how much. All I know is, I still miss those guys."

FMI: www.fiftiesweb.com