![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/What-was-\u2018the-day-the-music-died-Buddy-Holly-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Fri 17 October 2025 13:30, UK <\/p>\n
On February 2nd, 1959, in what would be a good nominee for the worst Groundhog Day of all-time, Buddy Holly<\/a> played the final gig of his life, strumming the last chord on his 1958 Fender Stratocaster before boarding an ill-fated chartered plane out of Clear Lake, Iowa.<\/p>\n Despite some occasional rumours to the contrary, however, Buddy\u2019s guitar did not come with him, and thus, was not found among the wreckage of the crash that killed him along with fellow rising rock stars Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Instead, due to the tiny size of the aircraft, almost all of the musicians\u2019 gear was left down below with the ground-bound members of the touring party. <\/p>\n Dion DiMucci, the 19-year-old frontman of Dion and the Belmonts, was originally supposed to join Buddy and the Bopper on the plane, but opted out when he realised that the cost of the ticket, $36, was about the same as what his father was paying for a whole month\u2019s rent back in the Bronx.<\/p>\n \u201cMy primary reason for not going was that $36!\u201d Dion told Forbes magazine in 2019, \u201cSo I said to Ritchie, \u2018Please, you go on the plane. Take your coat. Stay warm. I\u2019ll watch your guitars\u2019. Buddy then said to me, \u2018Watch my guitar, too. Take care of it like you would take care of your testicles!\u2019 I said OK. Later on, when I saw Peter Townshend break a Fender guitar on stage, I thought it was a sacrilege. Guitars were like gold to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Dion, much like Buddy\u2019s bass player, a young Waylon Jennings<\/a>, would be left with decades of difficult what-if thoughts about all the tiny decisions that determined a lot of young men\u2019s fates that night. One thing he didn\u2019t have to feel guilty about, however, was Buddy Holly\u2019s guitar. He had kept his word, and Holly\u2019s final guitar, the \u201858 Strat, was preserved, ultimately ending up in the Buddy Holly Museum many years later.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, as the \u2018Day the Music Died\u2019 has continued to fascinate people over the ensuing 70 years, misconceptions have popped up over Holly\u2019s guitars, including the mystery surrounding one of his early 1954 Stratocasters, in particular. According to his own bandmates in The Crickets, Holly had a \u201854 Strat stolen while the band were on tour in Michigan in 1957. That guitar was never recovered and could, indeed, still be out there somewhere, although proving its authenticity at this point would be a massive undertaking. <\/p>\n In 1958, Holly\u2019s replacement \u201857 Stratocaster was also stolen while the band were stopped at a cafe near St Louis, and according to some reports, he might have had yet another Strat ripped off that same year in Canada. All the confusion has led to some wondering if Buddy might have had another guitar among his gear that final night in Clear Lake, one that vanished into folklore immediately thereafter.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Day-The-Music-Died.jpg\")
<\/a>The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens (L-R). (Credit: Brunswick Records \/ Van Dyck \/ Wikimedia)<\/p>\n