Week of February 1-4 1959

February 1-4, 1959

An American Airlines prop-jet Electra plunges into the East River, killing 65

persons. It was trying to land on a runway lacking approach lights and

instruments. The plane was coming from Chicago and was just about to land at

LaGuardia. Nine survived.

Chief Justice Warren refuses to delay the scheduled admission of four Negro

pupils to a white junior high school in Arlington, VA.

Racial integration imposed by federal courts comes to unwilling Virginia and

seven public schools there. It went quietly and without incident.

comes home by special ambulance plane from

Durango, Mex where she sustained painful back

injuries last week when she fell from a horse during

rehearsal for a film scene in “The Unforgiven.”

Sunday night television -

CBS - Original Amateur Hour, Small World, Twentieth

Century, Lassie, Bachelor Father, ed Sullivan, GE

Theater, Alfred Hitchcock, Keep Talking, What’s My

Line?

NBC - Meet The Press, The Second Agony Of

Atlanta, Saber Of London, Music Shop, Steve Allen,

Shirley MacLaine, Loretta Young

ABC - You Asked For It, Maverick, Lawman, Colt .45, Dangerous Assignment, I

Married Joan, Meet McGraw

Ed Sullivan - The Moiseyev dancers (repeat).

Steve Allen - Martha Rye, Mr. Ballantine, Eddie

Condon, Woody Herman (In color).

Alfred Hitchcock - A young widow’s dress shop

heads for bankruptcy until a salesman comes

along in “Total Loss.”

Week of February 1-4 1959

Week of February 1-4 1959

Music news -

Clear Lake, Iowa. The four-plane chartered craft carrying the trio and their pilot

crashed within minutes after taking off in light snow from the Mason City airport.

Holly - 22 was from Lubbock, Tex; Valens (17) of Los Angeles and J.P.

Richardson (24) was from Beaumont, Tex. Pilot was Roger Peterson (21) of

Clear Lake, Iowa. The troupe had appeared and played before about 1,100 teens

and their parents and the surf ballroom in Clear Lake. The Beachcraft Bonanza,

chartered from the Dwyer Flying Service, was to have taken the three to Fargo,

N.D. Authorities believe bad weather for the crash. Temperature was 18 degrees

and a southerly wind was blowing at 35 miles an hour when the plane took off at

Week of February 1-4 1959

1am. The plane came down about 5 miles northwest of the airport on the Albert

Juhi farm.

The plane’s left wing first hit the ground and skidded across the snow for 538

feet. The body of Valens was thrown 40-feet. Richardson and Holly were found

20 feet from the wreckage. The body of pilot Roger Peterson was wedged so

tightly in the wreckage, it had to be cut loose with torches. All were not

discovered until long after dawn.

Other members of the troupe - the Crickets and

Dion and the Belmonts made the trip by bus and

did not learn of their companion’s fate until they

reached Fargo. At first, the performers didn’t

have the heart to go through with a scheduled

performance at Moorhead, across the state line

from Fargo, but changed their minds. Frankie

Avalon, and Jimmy Clanton dropped their

commitments so they could join the troupe in

Sioux City, IA as replacements for the dead stars.

performed, said the singers were weary of bus

travel and “wanted time to get their clothes

laundered.” So they chartered a plane for the three-hour flight to Fargo.

Richie Valens (Richard Valenzuela) who left high school last year to seek a

singing career, recently finished is first motion picture - “Go, Johnny! Go.” His

manager, Bob Keene, mourned, “Everybody was saying he was the next

Presley.” Mr. Richardson was on leave from station KTRM in Beaumont, where

he was a DJ and program director. Valens is hot on the charts with “Come On,

Let’s Go” and “Donna.”

at the Southern Music Publishing Co. in New York.

They were married last August 15. His latest hit is “It

Doesn’t Matter anymore.”

record, reflects on her 2 ½-year friendship with the

rock and roll singer from suburban Pacoima. Donna

lives on Paso Robles Ave in Granada Hills and is a

Week of February 1-4 1959

senior at James Monroe High School in

nearby Sepulveda. “I took his picture to

school with me today. Then some of the

girls and I went to St. John de la sale

Catholic Church afterwards and prayed for

him. We lighted some candles for him,

Fernando High School and he “was just a

baby” with undeveloped talent “who sang

and played the guitar at parties. She said

he was a bit modes and “wanted to be a

success more than anything else in the

world, but he wasn’t sure… he was always

a little scared when he got up to sing.”

Ms. Ludwig said her namesake song came

about from a phone conversation they had

last September, when she chided him

about writing that promised song for her.

“While we were talking, right there on the

telephone, he wrote the words to ‘Donna’

and he read them to me.” “He called me the next night and sang the song to me,

and played the guitar. It was wonderful. I didn’t believe it was going to be

recorded.”

She last spoke to him two weeks ago, before he left for the tour. “He said, ‘Let’s

get married when we’re 25. Will you wait for me?’ I thought he was a wonderful

boy.”

San Remo Music festival for the second time in two years.

Last year he won with “Volare” - To Fly - which became an

immediate winner and big hit in the United States. This time,

he won for “Piove.” He says he wrote it from a real life scene

of two lovers, parting in a Boston (MA) railway station.

WINS, New York does a tribute to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens

and J.P. Richardson on the Paul Sherman show. Many other

top-40 stations did the same.

Week of February 1-4 1959