Waylon (10 page)

That would have been a relief to J.I. and Joe B. Relations between the Crickets, who now included Sonny Curtis, and Norman
Petty were wearing thin. As far as Norman was concerned, Sonny was sort of a bastard child. By the beginning of February,
the Crickets were trying to reach Buddy on the road by phone, hoping to make peace.

I’ve often wondered what Buddy saw in me. He really liked me, I could tell. Toward the end I was probably closer to him than
anybody. I was green as a gourd. I hadn’t been anywhere. As a bass player, I must’ve been terrible. I was a good harmony singer,
but people didn’t come to see Buddy for the backing vocals.

He talked to me all the time about music, and I think maybe it was like he was looking in a mirror, reminding himself of the
things he had learned along the way. Maybe he could see how hungry I was, and how much I cared about being a singer. “Waylon,”
he’d say, “you don’t ever have to be restricted as a country artist, ’cause you can cut rock records and pop records if you
ever want to.” He’d tell me about not getting locked in, and developing a style. I learned so damn much from him, about rhythms,
and not overstaying your welcome, and not compromising.

Don’t ever let them tell you what to do, he’d emphasize. If people ask, say you’re pop. That gives you room to move; don’t
say rock ’n’ roll, don’t say country. He’d had a dose of Nashville, where they wouldn’t let him sing it the way he heard it
and wouldn’t let him play his own guitar parts. Can’t do this, can’t do that. Don’t ever let people tell you you can’t do
something, he’d say, and never put limits on yourself. Don’t back up.

It was all in the singer and the song. That was it. Buddy would talk about getting a groove and keeping it going. If the music
was right, the song will take care of itself. The whole thing is getting the rhythm to where you can feel it. That was the
difference between rock ’n’ roll, country, and pop.

Years later, I’d be in the studio, and the track would really get in the pocket and feel good, and I’d hear those Nashville
producers saying scornfully, “Man, that sounds like a pop hit.” And I’d remember Buddy talking to me, telling me they thought
he was crazy, as that freezing bus moved down the highway from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Clear Lake, Iowa.

The Surf Ballroom was packed, fifteen hundred strong. Even though that February 3 was a Monday night, it seemed like half
the town’s teenagers had turned out to “Rock Around with Ollie Vee.”

We opened with “Gotta Travel On,” Billy Grammer’s Top Ten smash of the past month, and then blazed through “our” hits: “That’ll
Be the Day,” “Maybe Baby,” “Rave On.” The show had been scheduled to start at eight, and we didn’t get off the bus until six
that evening. We were so cramped it was almost a relief to get on stage and shake our bodies loose.

The next night we were due in Moorhead, Minnesota, over four hundred miles northwest. We’d be “traveling on” through the night.
If we were lucky, and the bus didn’t break down again, we might get there by tomorrow afternoon. Buddy was exhausted, and
we didn’t have a clean shirt among us. He asked me and Tommy if we would like to go with him on a charter flight to fly ahead
of the troupe to Minnesota, so we could hopefully get some sleep and do laundry before the next night’s show at the Moorhead
Armory.

We agreed, and the dance hall manager made the arrangements with Dwyer’s Flying Service at the Mason City airport, to fly
to Fargo, North Dakota, across the Red River from Moorhead. A young pilot named Roger Peterson signed on for the flight, with
take-off time set for after the show, at 12:30
A.M.

In between acts, the Big Bopper came up to me. He was a large man, at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and he could hardly
fit, much less sleep, on the seats of the bus. He had been sick with the flu. “Buddy’s chartered a plane for you,” he told
me. “Waylon, would you mind letting me have your seat?”

Heck, I was skinnier’n a rail and could sleep anywhere. I was excited to be on the bus with the other performers. I said sure,
“but you have to talk with Buddy. If it’s okay with Buddy, it’s okay with me.”

Across the room, about the same time, Ritchie Valens and Tommy Allsup were flipping a coin to see whether Ritchie might take
Tommy’s seat on the plane. Tommy called tails and lost.

The next thing I know, Buddy sends me over to get a couple of hot dogs. He’s sitting there in a cane-bottomed chair, and he’s
leaned back against the wall. And he’s laughing.

“Ah,” he said. “You’re not going with me tonight, huh? Did you chicken out?”

I said no, I wasn’t scared. The Big Bopper just wanted to go.

“Well,” he said, grinning, “I hope your damned bus freezes up again.”

I said, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.”

That took me a lot of years to get over. I was just a kid, barely twenty-one. I was about halfway superstitious, like all
Southern people, scared of the devil and scared of God equally.

I was afraid somebody was going to find out I said that, and blame me. I knew I said that. I remember Buddy laughing and then
heading out for the airport after the show. I was certain I caused it.

The next morning was sunshine, and kind of warm. It was a little after ten when we pulled into Moorhead. I had been in the
back of the bus sleeping all night long. We were parked in front of the hotel. The tour manager went in and hurried back out.
He said, “Waylon, come here. I’ve got to talk to you.”

I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what, except that it was likely to be bad. You could hear it in his voice. I said
no; that’s just what I said. No.

I turned around to Tommy. “You go.”

Tommy went outside and came back a moment later. “Boys,” he said, “the guys didn’t make it. Their plane crashed.”

I was just numb.

Back in Littlefield, my mother thought I was dead. Over the radio they’d announced that “Buddy Holly and his band” had been
killed. They had found a bunch of our clothes and Tommy’s billfold in the wreckage, and that’s what caused all the confusion.

I didn’t think to call home. I could see the newspaper headlines across the lobby, something about rock and roll stars, and
the word “killed.” I wouldn’t go over and look at the pictures. I was thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Holley, of how much they loved
their son. That’s when I thought to ring my folks, and that was the first time they found out I was alive. My brother Tommy
had heard the news down at the cafe and had just come through the door all bent over when the phone rang and Maxine answered.

It was just chaos. Buddy hadn’t a chance in that plane. They were flying into a front, a blizzard, and the pilot hadn’t been
checked out on instruments. There were some rumors that the altimeter on the plane was reversed from what they were used to.
They thought they were going up when they were going down. They knocked snow off the top of a roof about a mile back. Maybe
if they hadn’t hit a fence post, they might’ve landed.

I’ve often wondered if Buddy wasn’t flying that plane. Every time we’d go in a plane in West Texas, the minute we got off
the ground, he’d say “Let me take the wheel.” That young pilot—who’s going to say no to Buddy Holly?

I don’t know if it makes any difference. Even with the bad weather, Buddy wouldn’t have hesitated taking that flight. Even
if they said it wasn’t safe to fly, he might’ve given the pilot more money to do it. He wasn’t afraid.

They found a gun in the wreckage that probably belonged to Ritchie Valens. Years later, they found Buddy’s glasses. He could
hardly see. If I’d go in his room in the morning and wake him up, he didn’t know who it was. He couldn’t see that far, to
the foot of the bed. And he couldn’t see into the future.

I just wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t stop the tour. Irving Feld from GAC called us and promised to fly us to Lubbock
first-class for the funeral if we would just play that night. He begged me. I said I didn’t want to do anything. “Just stay
with us until the day before the funeral when we fly you home, and then make up your mind.”

That night we played the show in Moorhead. I was trying to get drunk, but I couldn’t. The boy that imitated Buddy, Bobby Vee,
was on the bill. He’d won a talent show for local performers that afternoon, when they needed artists to fill out the program.
The promoters had told us when we got to the Armory that they were grateful we were letting the show go on, thanking us, saying
“we know this is so hard for you” and telling us they’d have lost everything if we’d cancelled the night. Then they tried
to dock us because Buddy and Ritchie and the Big Bopper hadn’t shown up. They tried not to pay us.

The tour manager came out to the bus and told us they were holding up our money. I said, “If they don’t give us our money,
we’ll tear that damn place up to where it will cost them more to fix it than to pay us.” He went back and got paid.

The money to fly us home for the funeral never came in, despite all the promises. They just screwed us around, not giving
us a dime until after the tour was over, making sure we stayed out there, finishing up the dates. Everybody pointed the finger
at everybody else. It’s not us, it’s GAC. It’s not GAC, it’s Irving Feld. I couldn’t believe people would act so unfeeling.
If that was the way things were, I didn’t want any part of the business. I thought, I don’t ever want to go out in the world
when there’s people like that.

We stumbled through the rest of the tour. We got lots of telegrams from other performers, like the Teddy Bears and Jimmy Bowen.
Frankie Avalon and Jimmy Clanton came in to substitute for the three stars. I thought Clanton was trying to walk off with
Buddy’s guitar, and I got it back. I was about to whip his ass but Tommy came between us. I was so torn up I would have whipped
anyone’s ass.

Dion took care of me as best he could. I was out there all alone, lost and scared to death. I had no clue. It seemed to take
forever, crawling through Ohio and Iowa and Illinois. In Chicago, we played the Aragon Ballroom, and a girl named Penny took
me under her wing. She was the wife of a Chicago disc jockey, and when we got to Springfield, she took me out to see Lincoln’s
house. She looked so much like JoAnne Campbell, and tried to act like her. Years later, I was out in California, playing at
the John Wayne Theatre, and there was a picture of JoAnne on the wall. It got me thinking of Penny. That night we stopped
on Santa Monica Boulevard for coffee. This girl across the room was looking at me, and finally she got up and came over.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. I was talking about you this afternoon.” It was Penny, and when I looked over at a calendar on the wall, I saw
it was February 3.

One of the strangest things that happened was when “Bill Parsons” came on that tour. He had a song out called “All American
Boy,” which was kind of a takeoff on the Elvis theme—“Get yourself a guitar, put it in tune / You’ll be a-rockin’ and a-rollin’
soon”—that ended with the singer going into the army. I was trying to drink a little then; I was all messed up. He was rehearsing,
and I was watching him. Finally I said, “That ain’t you doing that record.” He sounded more like Ernest Tubb.

“No, he’s in the army now,” replied “Bill.” “His name is really Bobby Bare.” Later, Bobby played such a big part in my life,
and still does, and that was the first time I’d ever heard of him.

Tommy and I never got along after Buddy died. I think he was jealous of the friendship Buddy and I shared. Dion said, “Waylon
should sing,” but Tommy immediately sent for this hotshot Elvis-looking guy named Ronnie Smith to take Buddy’s place. Buddy
hadn’t been that crazy about Tommy himself, and I guess Tommy didn’t think I had very much to give to the world.

He slipped me the first pill I ever took. We were going home, on our way back to New York. After the last show, I had a beer,
and for a joke, Tommy put a couple of Benzedrines in when I wasn’t looking. I was awake all the way from Chicago to New York,
my mind racing, thinking all these horrible things. The bed started moving and shaking. I didn’t know what was wrong with
myself or the world. Everything I’d hoped for was gone.

I had no intention of ever playing another note. When we got back to the train station, I put the bass and amplifier in a
locker at Grand Central Station, mailed the key to Maria Elena, and walked away.

I’d known very few people who had died, and I was heartsick about missing Buddy’s funeral, especially since they’d promised
to fly us down and back, and give us what Buddy would have normally gotten if we’d just finish the tour for them. They never
gave us half of our money, and screwed us around besides.

It just broke me up. It seemed like, of all the people on the tour, me included, fate picked the best ones and killed them.
As I look back, we were the only ones who cared. At GAC, they didn’t give a shit. They just wanted somebody out there.

After the tour they called a meeting in Irving Feld’s office to see who would continue as the Crickets. Sonny, J.I., Joe B.,
and their new singer, Earl Sinks—or Earl Henry or Snake Richards; he had several names—had been scheduled to record on February
14 at Bell Sound Studios on West Fifty-fourth Street as the Crickets for Brunswick, and had driven up from Texas. They met
the tour as we came in from Chicago.

Irving Feld said “Now, Waylon,” and offered the singing job to me, and of course J.I. and Joe B. “We can’t have two groups
of Crickets.”

Maybe he thought I was going to play guitar. I said no. “All I want is my money and to go home. I’m not a Cricket.”

He said, “You can be a part of it if you like,” and I said, “I don’t want to be.”

Tommy stayed on, because he was a lead player, and J.I. and Joe B. got Earl to stand in front. They had already cut the record
with him. Sonny and Goose were left out in the cold. I guess Goose was used to that. I don’t think his feet had unfrozen yet.

Sonny didn’t want to do it, either. Everybody had always thought Sonny was the one that would make it, and here Buddy had
torn up the world. We used J.I.’s ’58 Chevrolet Impala to come home in; Sonny and I, the kid—Ronnie—who Tommy had brought
up there, and Goose. It was about sundown when we left town, the last twilight of day shining off the Empire State Building,
and as we went out the Lincoln Tunnel toward the New Jersey Turnpike, I looked back at New York and thought, well, I’ll never
be here again. That’s all over. But I was here once.