"The Day The Music Died" Concert Poster
Musician
Buddy Holly
(American, 1936 - 1959)
Musician
J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper)
(American, 1930 - 1959)
Musician
Ritchie Valens
(American, 1941 - 1959)
Date1959
ClassificationsMusic
DimensionsOverall: 22 x 14 in. (55.9 x 35.6 cm)
Frame (Framed): 28 x 18 in. (71.1 x 45.7 cm)
DescriptionA concert poster for the Winter Dance Party tour, featuring Buddy Holly & the Crickets, the Big Bopper, Richtie Valens, Dion and The Belmots, and Frankie Sardo. The poster has a faded white background with black and yellow sections in the lower two-thirds. At top in red grease pen is written, "MOORHEAD ARMORY / FEB. 3 / 2 SHOWS -: 7:30 + 9:30". Below that is the advertisement for the acts with their names, popular songs, and photos of the four main attractions. Murray Poster Printing Co. New York, 1959.Frame (Framed): 28 x 18 in. (71.1 x 45.7 cm)
In what later became known as "The Day the Music Died," this poster advertises the 12th stop of Buddy Holly’s 1959 Winter Dance Tour in Moorhead, Minnesota. Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” (J.P. Richardson) never made it to this concert. Their chartered plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Clear Lake, Iowa early in the morning of February 3, 1959, killing all three musicians and the plane’s pilot. The concert still occurred, with fifteen-year-old Bobby Vee filling in for Buddy Holly with his remaining band members (including Waylon Jennings).
According to the family who found this poster, it had been affixed to a telephone pole but had fallen to the ground by the next day. As evidenced by the grease pen used to list the concert date, this poster had been created as a "tour blank" with each stop filled in by the local promoter.
