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Buddy Holly comes back to life at AC4TA [UPDATED]
Published 10:07am Monday, February 6, 2012 Updated 12:08pm Monday, February 6, 2012People taking part in the Frostbite Festival topped off Saturday by going back in time, to 1959, and hearing the music of Buddy Holly at A Center for the Arts. With the first performance at 7 p.m. sold out, well in advance, a second performance was added at 9:30 p.m.
“I lived through the Buddy Holly era,” said Fergus Falls retiree Ron Starkey during the intermission of the second show. “This performance is absolutely great.”
The show was billed as “I remember Buddy Holly” with additional music of Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and Roy Orbison.
Taking the role of Buddy Holly was Jeff Boxell. Portraying The Big Bopper was Dick Dunkirk, one of the original members of Bobby Vee and the Shadows’ band. Wayne Luchau took the roles of both Valens and Orbison.
Boxell sang two of Holly’s hit tunes to perfection, namely “Peggy Sue” and “Every Day.” Luchau sang Valens’ hit song “La Bamba” and Dunkirk pleased the audience with the Big Bopper song, “Chantilly Lace.”
A Center for the Arts stage went back in time to become the stage at the Surf Ballroom at Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 2, 1959. That’s where Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper performed.
Shortly after midnight, 53 years ago, the three performers boarded a small airplane for a flight to Fargo-Moorhead where they were to perform at the Moorhead Armory on Feb. 3. Waylon Jennings, another singer who had performed with the group in Clear Lake, gave up his seat on the plane and instead decided to take the bus to Moorhead. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing the three singers and the pilot. Holly was only 22, Valens 17 and the Big Bopper 28 at the time of their deaths.
After the loss of Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper, Fargo’s Bobby Vee, Dick Dunkirk and other members of the Shadows’ band performed at the Moorhead Armory, replacements for the three musical stars. The day Feb. 3, 1959, became known as “The day the music died.”
Some Fergus Falls residents and others from Otter Tail County were in attendance at the Moorhead Armory 53 years ago. Those who still have ticket stubs, with the names of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, have something valuable.
Vee, Dunkirk and members of the Shadows were grateful to be enthusiastically accepted at the Moorhead Armory, in the wake of the plane crash that took the life of Holly and his singing companions.
Soon afterwards, Vee recorded his first record called “Suzie Baby.” He went on to become a singing star during the 1960s with hit tunes “Rubber Ball,” “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” and others. Vee married Karen Bergen of Detroit Lakes in 1963. They have three sons and a daughter.
When leaving A Center for the Arts, after the two performances Saturday evening, many people said it was fun to travel back in time to 1959 and relive the days of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper and Roy Orbison, who was only 52 when he died of a heart attack in 1988.
Those singers may be long gone, but are not forgotten.
