On The Day The Music Died February 3, 1959, Tommy Allsup who was with Buddy Holly on the Winter Dance Party Tour alongside Ritchie Valens, Big Bopper, and Waylon Jennings. Because of a coin toss he missed getting on Buddy Holly’s airplane. He lived to become a highly respected American rockabilly, western swing, and country guitarist. His career spanned more than six decades.
Allsup was born near Owasso, Oklahoma, in 1931, and was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. He grew up in Oklahoma and became active in western swing and dance‑hall bands. By the mid‑1950s, they were already gaining attention as a skilled session and touring guitarist.
Imagine what it was like for a young Tommy Allsup to meet the one and only Buddy Holly. Buddy had become one of the biggest music stars of the day. Both became friends, and Allsup would join Buddy Holly’s band in 1958.
Holly had moved to New York and reorganized his touring group. Once Buddy parted ways with the original Crickets he would take Allsup under his wing and develop him as an artist. Allsup’s smooth, precise guitar style became a recognizable part of Holly’s later live sound playing lead guitar on “It’s So Easy!” and “Lonesome Tears”.
When Buddy decided to go back on the road in the winter of 1959, he met up with Allsup because he was taking him to play on the road in his band. The excitement Tommy had of playing with his mentor would be short lived. The tour was miserable. Traveling on a bus where the heater didn’t work most of the time. That’s when a very fed-up Buddy decided to charter a flight out of Clear Lake, Iowa in the early hours of February 3, 1959. Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on that plane, but J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) wasn’t feeling well so Waylon generously gave his seat to him.
Tommy was also included with the people to be on the flight. A coin toss decided Allsup’s fate. Ritchie Valens, wanting a break from the cold buses, asked Allsup for the seat. The two agreed to settle it with a coin flip. Valens won the toss, so Allsup gave up his seat.
The plane took off shortly after midnight. On board were Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson. The aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff, killing everyone onboard.
investigators initially thought that Allsup had died in the crash because “When they found the bodies the next morning, they found five wallets with five different IDs,” Allsup said. “So they had my name on Associated Press as one of the people on the plane.
Because the tour company initially marked Tommy as a passenger and Tommy had given Holly his wallet so that Holly could use Allsup’s ID to claim a mailed letter on his behalf Tommy was thought to have been on the plane.
Because there was confusion about who was on the plane at the time of the crash and the initial Associated Press release most thought Tommy had been killed.
The crash was later immortalized in Don McLean’s song American Pie and became known as “the day the music died”.
Allsup realized he had narrowly escaped and went on to speak about the event throughout his life, always acknowledging both the tragedy and the strange luck that spared him.
Following Holly’s death, Allsup continued a successful career He Became an in‑demand session guitarist in Los Angeles and Nashville. Allsup went on to become a Grammy-winning musician, who played with Merle Haggard, Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson. Bob Wills, The Ventures, Bobby Vee, Steve Ripley, and many others. He produced records and ran studios, including work in western swing preservation. In the mid-1970s Allsup served as the producer for a pair of Asleep at the Wheel albums. His unique playing style earned them a lasting place in American roots‑music circles.
In 1979, he started a club named Tommy’s Heads Up Saloon in Fort Worth. The club was named for Allsup’s coin toss with Valens 20 years beforehand
One of Tommy Allsup’s guitars is in The Church Studio’s archive., His son Austin Allsup of Austin Allsup Music took it out for a spin and used it during a recording session at The Church Studio!
Allsup had a son, Austin, who is also a musician. Austin has recorded at The Church Studio, in Tulsa, been a feature performer at The Church Studio’s Carney Fest and competed as a contestant on the 11th season of The Voice.
The last surviving member of Buddy Holly’s touring band for the 1959 Winter Dance Party, Tommy Allsup died on January 11, 2017, at 85 years old in a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, after complications from hernia surgery. Tommy got an additional 57 years and 11 months out of the coin flip and used it for good.