Sunday, January 30, 2011

A Tale of the 1959 Winter Dance Party from Tipton, Iowa

Every town, large or small has stories to tell. This one comes from 42N’s Tipton, Iowa and connects the town to the early giants of the Rock’n’Roll era – fifty two years ago today!

Many people know the tragic story of the airplane crash on February 3, 1959 that ended the lives of musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) and their pilot, Roger Peterson. A couple of movies have been produced about it (The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba) and the song, American Pie by Don McLean speaks to the event about the day the music died. Annually, Clear Lake, Iowa’s Surf Ballroom, the site of the last Holly-Valens-Richardson concert, remembers the stars with music and dance.

In the days prior to the Surf Ballroom performance, the stars (Holly, Valens, Richardson, Dion, future star, Waylon Jennings and others) made their way to several concert locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa by bus. In these latitudes at this time of year winter conditions can be very cold. 1959 was no exception.

On Friday, January 30th after performing at the Capitol Ballroom in Davenport, Iowa the night before, the stars travel by bus for their next gig in Fort Dodge, Iowa some 250 miles away. Complicating the long road trip is the fact that the bus’ heating element is not working. The riders are miserable and the driver decides to stop in nearby Tipton for repairs.

While the heater issue is diagnosed and repairs made at the Gaul Motor Company for four hours, the Winter Dance Party band members go for a bite to eat at Al’s Meet and Eat Restaurant on the 300 block of Cedar Street. The band interacted with the town’s folks who didn’t appear to know who they are.

Some of the band members looked for warmer clothes at the T & M Clothes Store. In 1992 store owner George Tevis recalls that the band members were underdressed with lightweight coats and pants. They paid for new winter gear with lots of $100 bills, he said.



But at the Meet and Eat there was something a bit more interesting going on. Ritchie Valens and maybe others chatted up the wait staff at the tiny diner. Ritchie Valens asked waitress Ester Wenck if she wanted to hear the song he made famous. Wenck said yes and Valens went over to the diner’s juke box and played his hit, Donna. Wenck said that Valens then sang along with his record to her.


Al's Meet and Eat photos are courtesy of the Cedar County Genealogical Society in Tipton, Iowa. These photos represent the time period of the 1959 Winter Dance Party but do not show any of the band members.
A repair of the heater is completed and the band leaves for their Laramar Ballroom performance in Fort Dodge. There is speculation that the band may have discussed renting a plane while in Tipton to avoid the cold and long traveling times afforded by bus travel. The next day, Saturday, January 31st as they enter Duluth, Minnesota the bus breaks down again. A chartered plane is now in the works as something that Valens wants, but a replacement bus is found. On Sunday, February 1st the bus again breaks down again while traveling to Appleton, Wisconsin for a matinee, which is subsequently canceled. The band takes the train to Green Bay and plays at Riverside Ballroom that evening.

On Monday, February 2 the repaired bus picks the band up after the show and travels to their next stop – the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. After the performance at the Surf, shortly after midnight on February 3rd a chartered plane takes off from the Mason City, Iowa airport and crashes within minutes.

News reaches Tipton on Tuesday and those who had seen the band members were quite taken back since the stars had just around a few days prior. “All we know was they were very nice guys – just a bunch of nice boys,” said Bob McGregor, a Tipton Shell Station owner who later recounted the story in 1992.

J.P. Richardson’s son visited Tipton in the early 1990s. Many people who had firsthand accounts of the band’s brief stay in town met JP jr. and retold their stories. Ritchie Valens’ relatives have also visited the town. Today, a museum on Cedar Street downtown (Cedar County Genealogical Society) at a place called, Ms Molly’s is where you can find the Tipton version of the Winter Dance Party story and talk to people who remember. Know that.

22 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing a story about your town's connection to "the day the music died." It is so nice to see so much pride in and love of your home town.

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  2. WoW, ya can't even begin to imagine how much I enjoyed this story. I have read the books and watched the movies about Buddy Holly but your wrote the story so very well. Thanks for the great entertainment this mornin'.

    god bless and have a 'super' weekend!!! :o)

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  3. I feel like I knew part of this story, but not told this way. My brother in law travels with a band, in a van, all across the country. I somehow delude myself in thinking that it's somehow much safer now than it was way back when.

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  4. Beautiful story. I like your website!

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  5. robertzahorik@hotmail.comSeptember 30, 2012 at 9:13 PM

    Did Buddy or any of the band bust up a guitar in Tipton?

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    1. I didn't run into any instrument bashing in my research for this story. Bands didn't usually destroy their instruments until the 1960s when the Who and others took stage theatrics to a new level. Thanks for reading the story. I should do a follow up...

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    2. WOW!! I want to Thank You for writing and Posting this Story.. You wrote it in such a Nice way, making it one of the Best I have read through the years.. On that fateful day we Lost too many of our young Singers in one time;I feel they were ALL on their way to being some of Our Greatest Singers of ALL TIME.. May they ALL R.I.P. Thanks for the Memories.. Loved them All!!

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  6. cool story....I had an Aunt, Uncle and two cousins living there at that time.

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  7. Very cool, I'm from Davenport, my folks traveled to Tipton to elope, just months before Pearl Harbor, and Dad being gone for the duration. . I have traveled all over Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, in winter and summer. Must have been absolutely grueling for the band to be stuck on that bus for those long drives! Thanks for the article!

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  8. The 1954 Chevy in the first picture once belonged to me after Al traded it in...
    Spent a lot of time it Al's Meet and Eat

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    1. Wow, small world. These photos came from the historical society. They had a notebook filled with various things. The curator (a retire law enforcement person)let me photograph a few for this article. Next time there seek that notebook out.

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    2. Heck Ron, I'm surprised you didn't get signed up to join one of the bands!

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  9. The winter of 2016-17 is shaping up to be a very cold one too. I can't imagine the crappy bus rides in the winter especially covering hundreds of miles each day during that winter dance tour.

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  10. My mom (Fritz Nace) worked at Al's for several years and is the one on the end of the third picture. This is quite a story.

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  12. Respectfully written, not dwelling on the tragic results

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  13. I blame that of in the cheapskate promoters for not providing them with a bus that was heated and heartless to continue after all of those in. innocent four young men who lost their lives. They did not care about anybody as these people were someone's child, sibling, husband, father, etc.
    Very well written BTW. Love that kind of music. Thanks for providing. As hope to one day go to the site of the crash. As it will be emotional. If I ever go there. Love those pictures!

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  14. My mom had worked at the diner but was her day off. Her brother in law helped work on the bus in Tipton. Always a neat story of meeting them.

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  15. Thanks for sharing!! I'd worked at Al's Meat and Eat in the late 60's and early 70's.

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  16. That’s my mom in picture 2 with her back to the camera. She and Fritz Nace worked together. That is Esther Albaugh Wenck.

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  17. We lived in Tipton at that time and my husband worked at the gas station.He came home at noon all excited and went up to the teen hang out all afternoon. I was sick and didn’t go.

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