The Bar-Kays':
Jimmy King(b.1949; guitar), Ronnie Caldwell (b. 1948; organ), Phalin
Jones (b. 1949; saxophone),
and Carl Cunningham (b. 1949; drums). The Bar-Kays were employed
as Otis Redding's backing
group on tour, and the tragic plane crash in 1967, which took his
life, also claimed King, Caldwell,
Jones and Cunningham. James Alexander, who fortuitously
missed the flight, put a new line-up
together with Ben Cauley, the sole survivor of the accident.
Big
Bopper:
(b. Jape Perry Richardson, 24 October 1930, Sabine Pass, Texas, USA,
d.3 February 1959).
After working as a disc jockey in Beaumont, Richardson won a recording
contract with Mercury,
releasing two unsuccessful singles in 1957. The following year, under
his radio monicker The Big
Bopper, he recorded the ebullient Chantilly Lace, a rock ‘n’ roll classic,
complete with blaring
saxophone and an insistent guitar run. Backed with the satiric The
Purple People Eater Meets The
Witch Doctor, the disc was a transatlantic hit. The follow up,
Big Bopper's Wedding underlined
the singer's love of novelty and proved popular enough to win him a
place on a tour with Buddy Holly
and Ritchie Valens. On 3 February 1959, a plane carrying the
three stars crashed, leaving no survivors.
Patsy Cline:
(b. Virginia Patterson Hensley, 8 September 1932, Gore, near
Winchester, Virginia, d. 5 March 1963).
Patsy's lover and manager, Randy Hughes, was the son-in-law of Cowboy
Copas. In 1963 Randy
flew Patsy to Kansas City for a benefit for the widow of a country
disc jockey who had died in a
car crash. The return journey was hampered by storms and poor visibility.
On 5 March 1963
Patsy Cline, Cowboy
Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Randy Hughes were killed when their plane
crashed in swamped woodlands in Camden,
Tennessee, 85 miles from Nashville. Identification was
difficult as only Patsy's shoulders, the back of her head and right
arm were in one recognizable piece.
Another country star, Jack Anglin, of the duo Johnny And Jack, was
killed on the way to her funeral.
Patsy's single at the time of her death was, ironically, Leavin' On
Your Mind.
Cowboy
Copas:
(b. Lloyd Estel Copas, 15 July 1913, near Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA,
d. 5 March 1963).
Copas was raised on a small ranch and taught himself the fiddle and
guitar before he was 10
years old. His son-in-law, Randy Hughes, also managed Patsy
Cline and all three were killed,
along with Hawkshaw Hawkins, in a plane crash on 5 March 1963.
A few weeks later, Copas
had a posthumous country hit with a record ironically entitled Goodbye
Kisses.
Jim Croce:
(b. 10 January 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 20 September
1973).
Originally a university disc jockey, Croce
played in various rock bands before moving to
New York in 1967 where he performed in folk clubs. By 1969, he and
his wife, Ingrid, were
signed to Capitol Records for APPROACHING DAY. The album's failure
led to Croce
returning to Pennsylvania and taking on work as a truck driver and
telephone engineer.
Meanwhile, he continued with songwriting and, after sending demo tapes
to former college friend
and New York record producer, Tommy West, Croce secured a new deal
with the ABC label.
Croce's second album, YOU DON'T MESS AROUND WITH JIM, provided him
with a US
Top 10 hit in the title track and, along with Operator (That's Not
The Way It Feels) helped establish
Croce as a songwriter of distinction. In July 1973, he topped the US
charts with the narrative Bad
Bad Leroy Brown. Exactly two months later, he died in a plane crash
at Natchitoches, Louisiana.
John Denver:
(b. Henry John Deutschendorf Jnr., 31 December 1943, Roswell, New Mexico,
USA, d.12 October 1997).
One of America's most popular performers during the '70s, Denver's
rise to fame began
when he was ‘discovered’ in a Los Angeles night club. He initially
joined the Back Porch
Majority, a nursery group for the renowned New Christy Minstrels but,
tiring of his role there,
left for the Chad Mitchell Trio where he forged a reputation as a talented
songwriter. One of
his compositions, Leaving On A Jet Plane, provided an international
hit for Peter, Paul And Mary,
and this evocative song was the highlight of Denver's debut album,
RHYMES AND REASONS.
He continued to enjoy a high profile throughout the rest of the
decade and forged a concurrent
acting career with his role in the film comedy OH,
GOD with George Burns. However, although
Denver became an unofficial musical ambassador with tours to Russia
and China, his recording
became less prolific as increasingly he devoted time to charitable
work and ecological interests.
A San Francisco television station reported that Denver may have
crashed while trying to switch
from one fuel tank to another. Both tanks were empty, KRON reported.
Denver was killed instantly
in the crash of the Long-EZ experimental airplane he was piloting
on October 12 , in Monterey Bay
shortly after take off. Denver, an experienced pilot,
had taken delivery of the Y-shaped, futuristic
looking plane just a day before the crash.
Hawkshaw
Hawkins:
(b. Harold Franklin Hawkins, 22 December 1921, Huntingdon, West Virginia,
USA, d. 5 March 1963).
In 1942, he performed on radio in Manila when stationed in the
Phillippines. After his discharge,
he signed with King Records and did well with Sunny Side Of The Mountain,
which became his
signature tune. In 1948 he became one of the first country artists
to appear on network television.
He had US country hits with Pan American, I Love You A Thousand Ways,
I'm Just Waiting For
You and Slow Poke In 1963 Hawkins released his best-known recording,
Justin Tubb's song
Lonesome 7-7203. The song entered the US country charts three days
before Hawkins died on
5 March 1963 in a plane crash which also claimed Patsy Cline and
Cowboy Copas. Lonesome
7-7203 was his only number 1 record in the US country charts.
His wife, country singer Jean Shepard,
was pregnant at the time and their son was named Harold Franklin Hawkins
II in his memory.
Buddy Holly:
(Charles
Hardin Holley, 7 September 1936, Lubbock, Texas, USA, d. 3 February
1959).
Holly
was one of the first major rock ‘n’ roll groundbreakers, and one of its
most influential artists.
Holly was an initial inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1986. On the afternoon of 1
February his tour played in Green Bay, Wisconsin but an evening show
was cancelled owing to bad
weather. The 2 February date at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa
went ahead. It was following
this show that Holly,
Valens and the Big Bopper chartered a small plane to take them to the next
date
in Moorhead, Minnesota, rather than travel on the tour bus, which had
a defective heater and had
previously broken down several times. Owing to the snowy weather
the plane crashed
minutes after
takeoff, killing all three stars and the pilot. (The tour actually
continued after their deaths, with Bobby
Vee, Jimmy Clanton and Frankie Avalon filling in).
Lynyrd
Skynyrd:
Ronnie Van Zant
(b. 15 January 1949; vocals, d. 20 October 1977).
With their tally of gold discs increasing each year and a series of
sell-out tours, the band
suffered an irrevocable setback in late 1977. On 20 October, Van
Zant, Gaines, his sister
Cassie and manager Dean Kilpatrick were killed in a plane crash
en route from Greenville,
South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That same month, Lynyrd
Skynyrd's new album
STREET SURVIVORS was withdrawn as the sleeve featured a macabre design
of the band
surrounded by flames.
Rick
Nelson:
(b. Eric Hilliard Nelson, 8 May 1940, Teaneck, New Jersey, d.
31 December 1985, De Kalb, Texas).
One of his greatest moments as a pop singer occurred in the spring
of 1961 when he issued the
million-selling Travelin Man’ backed with the exuberant Gene Pitney
composition Hello Mary Lou.
Shortly after the single topped the US charts, Nelson celebrated his
21st birthday and announced
that he was changing his performing name from Ricky to Rick.
A performance at Madison Square
Garden in late 1971 underlined Nelson's difficulties at the time. Although
he had recently issued the
accomplished RICK SINGS NELSON, on which he wrote every track, the
audience were clearly
more interested in hearing his early '60s hits. Nelson responded by
composing the sarcastic Garden
Party, which reaffirmed his determination to go his own way. The single,
ironically, went on to sell a
million and was his last hit record. On 31 December 1985,
a chartered plane carrying him to a
concert date in Dallas caught fire and crashed near De Kalb, Texas.
Otis
Redding:
(September 1941, Dawson, Georgia, USA, d. 10 December 1967).
The son of a Baptist minister, Redding assimilated gospel music during
his childhood
and soon became interested in jump blues and R&B. He remained
something of a cult
figure until 1965 and the release of the magnificent OTIS BLUE in which
original material
nestled beside the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction and two songs by a
further mentor, Sam
Cooke. Redding's version of the Temptations' My Girl then became a
UK hit, while the
singer's popularity was further enhanced by the visit of the Hit The
Road Stax revue in
1967. A triumphant appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival suggested
that Redding
was about to attract an even wider following but tragedy struck on
10 December 1967.
The light aircraft in which he was travelling plunged into Lake
Monona, Madison, Wisconsin,
killing the singer, his valet, the pilot and four members of the
Bar-Kays. The wistful (Sittin' On)
The Dock Of The Bay, a song Redding recorded just three days earlier,
became his only
million-seller and US pop number 1.
Jim Reeves:
(James Travis Reeves, b. 20 August 1923, Galloway, Texas, USA, d. 31
July 1964).
His first singing work was with Moon Mullican's band in Beaumont,
Texas and he worked
as an announcer and singing disc jockey at KGRI in Henderson for several
years. (Reeves
bought the station in 1959). In November 1952 Reeves moved to
KWKH in Shreveport,
where his duties included hosting the "Louisiana Hayride."
A land deal took him via private
plane (he was a skilled amateur pilot) to Batesville, Arkansas, on
July 30, 1964, with pianist
Dean Manuel. On July 30, while approaching Nashville on his
return, the plane ran into a
rainstorm and disappeared from radar. Outside his Brentwood
home, Marty Robbins heard
something crash. It took two days to find the wreckage and the
bodies.
Randy
Rhoads:
(b. Randall William Rhoads, 6 December 1956, Santa Monica, California,
USA, d. 19 March 1982).
Possibly one of the greatest hard rock guitarists America ever produced,
Randy Rhoads would,
had his life not been so tragically curtailed in a freak airplane accident,
be talked about in the same
breath as Eddie Van Halen or even Jimmy Page. Randy
Rhoads was the talented heavy metal guitarist
who helped put Ozzy Osbourne back on the charts in the early 1980's.
Whilst en route to Florida
for further live shows the tour bus made an unscheduled stop where
the driver's friend had a small aeroplane.
After taking up a couple of band members for a joy ride, Rhoads and
a make-up girl were persuaded to
enlist. The pilot, high on cocaine, seemingly aimed the aircraft
at the empty tour bus and all passengers
were killed.
Ritchie Valens:
(b.Richard Steve Valenzuela, 13 May 1941, Los Angeles, California,
USA, d. 3 February 1959, Iowa).
Valens was the first major Hispanic-American rock star, the artist
who popularized the classic '50s
hit La Bamba. Valens also performed solo and was heard by Bob
Keane of Del-Fi Records, who
took him into Gold Star Studios to record several songs. (Keane also
shortened the singer's name
from Valenzuela to Valens and added the ‘t’ to Richie). In October
1958 the single Donna/’La Bamba’
was issued. It was actually the ballad Donna, written by Valens about
his high school friend Donna Ludwig,
that was, contrary to popular belief, the side of the record which
was the bigger hit, reaching number 2.
La Bamba, the b-side, only reached number 22 in the USA but is the
more fondly-remembered song.
It was on 3 February 1959 when he, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper
were killed in an aeroplane crash
following a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa.