By James Perry

We will resume with the series of “The Late Great America” in April with Part 3. This month’s and the March articles will be of tragic loss of talent and also life caused by events put in place by decisions made from inexperience, haste and by a personal vendetta.
This month’s article started in the fall of 1958 as Buddy Holly disbanded with the Crickets, stopped recording with Norman Petty at his recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico, moved to New York City, met and married Maria Elena Santiago and enrolled in acting classes and planned his next recording session at Decca’s Pythian Temple Studio.
His session was on October 21, 1958, and was backed by band leader Dick Jacobs conducting an 18-piece ensemble composed of musicians from the NBC Symphony Orchestra. This was the best performance and recording of Holly’s career―and his last. At this session he recorded these four songs:
1. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore by Paul Anka; charted January 1958, at #1 in UK and CA
2. Raining in My Heart by Felice & Boudleaux Bryant; charted January, 1958, at #88
3. True Love Ways by Holly; charted 1960 at #25 in UK 1960
4. Moon Dreams by Norman Petty
Although these songs didn’t chart well after his death over the years, the first three sold millions and have been recorded by many artists and have become some of the most performed songs at live performances.

“The Big Bopper,” like Buddy Holly, was another Texas entertainer, six years older at the age of 28. His name was Jiles Perry Richardson from Beaumont, Texas. He worked as a disc jockey at a local Beaumont radio station during college and served in the army from 1955-1957. After his military service, Richardson went back to radio as a disc jockey and started writing songs. Three of his songs started careers for him, Johnny Preston and George Jones. Richardson has never been given credit for his creativity, which has smiled favorably and financially for the entire country, bluegrass, rock-n-roll, country pop, doo-wop, and hip-hop music industry. But getting back to his short career as a performer, Richardson wrote “Chantilly Lace,” which he recorded and was released June 1958 on the Mercury label. It became a #6 billboard hot 100 hit and was the third most-played song of 1958, even though it was recorded late in the year.

Richardson wrote “Treasure of Love,” which George Jones recorded October of 1958, and it hit #6 on the country charts in 1958.
Richardson’s next song, recorded by George Jones, was also Jones’ first #1 hit. It was recorded September 1958, released February 1959, and became Jones’ first #1 hit on April 13, 1959, and secured Jones’ future as one of the top country recording artists. This song was “White Lightning.”
Jones also recorded the gospel song, “Someone is Watching Over You,” which is the first song on the album “Homecoming in Heaven.” This song was also written by Richardson whose stage name was “The Big Bopper.”
Richardson’s next song, which became a monster hit, was first recorded by Johnny Preston and later by Sonny James. Preston recorded “Running Bear,” on Mercury Records in December 1958 in Houston, Texas. The recording was released in August of 1959 and hit #1 on Billboard Hot 100 chart January 18, 1960. It also hit #1 on UK charts March of 1960 and topped charts in New Zealand and Australia that year.
By the way, the Indian background sounds were performed by George Jones and The Big Bopper. This song by Johhny Preston became an international hit in 1960. The next major recording of this song was recorded by Sonny James on March 20, 1969, at the Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The recording was released on Capitol Records in April of 1969 and charted to #1 on Billboard Hot 100 Chart in June of 1969. This was a little more than 10 years after Preston’s recording hit #1 in the USA and went international.
On February 8, 1961, Hank Snow and his band recorded a session at the RCA Victor Studio in Nashville and the second song was written by Richardson. That song was “Beggar to a King.” This song was released immediately and climbed to #5 on the country charts in 1961.

In 1958 Richardson (The Big Bopper) pioneered the first music videos. He named them “Music Video,” and had plans to build prototype portable video machines to be offered to the public. He was a man 25 years ahead of his time.

Richard Steven Valenzuela, known as Ritchie Valens, had a very short professional career of only eight months at the time of his young death. He was born May 13, 1941, in the San Fernando Valley, California and lived there until his death. Valens had recorded a session at Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood, California. His two biggest hits were recorded during this session. His biggest hit was “Donna” which was written about his high school girlfriend Donna Ludwig. “Donna” was the A side and the B side was “Come on Let’s Go.” “Donna” charted #2 on Billboard and “Come on Let’s Go” charted #42 on Billboard.
On September 23, 1958, Valens had another session at Gold Star Recording Studios and the song was in Spanish. The song was the first one from that session. It was “La Bamba,” which charted at #22 on US Billboard. It has been pushed as the signature song by Ritchie Valens, but outside of California, “Donna” was Ritchie Valens’ real signature song. “Donna’ went to #2 during a time when there was a tremendous number of pop songs released.

There are so many things that played into the aircraft accident, but the largest contribution was that evidently Norman Petty held back royalties owed to Buddy Holly, which put Buddy into needing money and taking the offer to join the Winter Dance Party Tour through the worst sections of the USA during the worst weather possible. If Norman Petty had paid Buddy his royalty money, four young men would possibly have lived long productive lives.

All the songs in this article can be listened to on YouTube.

On Sunday February 15, 2026 at 2 pm, Art Bohanan will be at the Roy Acuff Union County Museum and Genealogical Library to tell the audience about his adventures across the country working in forensics and identifying bodies after tragedies such as 9-1-1, the Columbia Shuttle disasters, and hurricane disasters, where body identification by his crews is needed. You’re all welcome to attend.