O/T: The Day The Music Died

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Posted By: Rob D.

From snopes.com:

Over the years, the list of people who "gave up a seat" on this ill-fated flight has grown to rival the list of persons claiming to have been invited to Sharon Tate's "quiet evening at home" the night the Manson family struck. Although Buddy Holly initially may have asked around to find other tour members willing to share the cost of chartering a plane (as Dion DiMucci claims), the only persons who committed to fly on it with Holly were his two fellow band members, Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings. J.P. Richardson, who was coming down with the flu, managed to talk Jennings into giving up his seat so that he could arrive at the next tour stop early and have a little extra time to visit a doctor. Ritchie Valens spent the evening trying to convince Allsup to give up his seat on the plane, but Allsup, who needed to pick up a registered letter waiting for him in Fargo, demurred. Finally, just as Allsup was about to leave the Surf City ballroom for the airport, he gave in and agreed to flip a coin with Valens for a spot on the airplane. (Unlike the way this scene is depicted in the Ritchie Valens film biography La Bamba, Holly did not charter a plane for "headliners only" or arrange the last-minute coin toss between Valens and Allsup, nor did that coin toss take place outside in a snowfall just as the plane was boarding.) Valens won the coin toss, and Allsup stayed behind to ride the bus to the next destination. Thus Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup were the only two persons who truly "gave up a seat" on Buddy Holly's final flight.