Zoneboy
01-11-2017, 08:02 PM
Link (http://lubbockonline.com/entertainment/2017-01-11/tommy-allsup-guitarist-who-toured-buddy-holly-dies)
Tommy Allsup, a guitarist who toured with Lubbock musician Buddy Holly in 1959, has died, according to sources close to the family.
He was 85.
Allsup outlived Holly, teenage singer Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who all died Feb. 3, 1959, when the plane they were travelling in crashed just after midnight.
Holly initially offered members of his touring band, including Allsup, a spot on the four-seater aircraft he chartered after a Winter Dance Party tour across the Midwest, according to A-J Media archives.
Bob Hale, a disc jockey at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, told reporters he flipped the coin that decided whether Allsup or Valens would have the last seat.
It was Allsup who pulled out a 50-cent piece and flipped it.
He lost the coin flip and was asked decades later by music historian Bill Griggs what happened to the coin. Allsup said that he kept it.
“It saved my life,” Allsup told Griggs.
Tommy Allsup, a guitarist who toured with Lubbock musician Buddy Holly in 1959, has died, according to sources close to the family.
He was 85.
Allsup outlived Holly, teenage singer Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who all died Feb. 3, 1959, when the plane they were travelling in crashed just after midnight.
Holly initially offered members of his touring band, including Allsup, a spot on the four-seater aircraft he chartered after a Winter Dance Party tour across the Midwest, according to A-J Media archives.
Bob Hale, a disc jockey at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, told reporters he flipped the coin that decided whether Allsup or Valens would have the last seat.
It was Allsup who pulled out a 50-cent piece and flipped it.
He lost the coin flip and was asked decades later by music historian Bill Griggs what happened to the coin. Allsup said that he kept it.
“It saved my life,” Allsup told Griggs.