What Happened Today In Music

October 23rd

1964 - Buddy and the Kings
All four members of US band Buddy and the Kings were killed when they hired a Cesna Skyhawk to take them to a gig in Harris County. Piloted by the bands drummer Bill Daniles, the plane crashed nose first killing all on board. Singer with the group Harold Box had replaced Buddy Holly in The Crickets after his death in a plane crash. He sang lead vocals on 'Peggy Sue Got Married.' The Great Gig In The Sky

DAVID BOX: THE OTHER ROCK & ROLL GENIUS FROM LUBBOCK

BURT KEARNS · NOVEMBER 7, 2018

He joined the Crickets after Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, befriended Roy Orbison, toured with Dusty Springfield, the Everly Brothers and the Searchers…and then died in exactly the same manner as Buddy Holly

by Burt Kearns and Jeff Abraham

On February 3, 1959, a small plane crashed into a field, killing four people, including the rock ‘n’ roll singer from Lubbock, Texas who, with The Crickets, recorded a song about Peggy Sue. That date was later declared “The Day The Music Died.” ... It didn’t, though. The music, that is. It didn’t really die that day. Buddy Holly, former leader of The Crickets, was already a star and innovator, and was immortalized by his premature death. The music of fellow crash victims Ritchie Valens, the teenage Chicano rocker, and songwriter-deejay J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson still plays on, celebrated and imitated sixty years after that fatal trip.

“The Day The Music Died” is a label that might be better applied to the day a small plane crashed into a field, killing four people, including the rock ‘n’ roll singer from Lubbock, Texas who, with The Crickets, recorded a song about Peggy Sue. ... That date was October 23, 1964. The musician was David Box. To many, he’s the answer to a trivia question, part of a bizarre Celebrity Babylon coincidence: the guy who replaced Buddy Holly in The Crickets and wound up dying — the exact same way. ... A dig, and not even too deep, reveals much more. As it turns out, David Box was a talent on par with Buddy Holly, cut short on the verge of success. Buddy made it to 22. David Box died at 21. His recorded legacy may have remained dead to the world, if not for one woman who’s spent more than fifty years making sure David Box’s music stays alive.

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David Box and the Ravens

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David Box at Lubbock High School

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Austin-American-10/25/64

David and Ray Rush planned to fly on Saturday, October 24, 1964 to Nashville, where the contract for David Box’s first RCA Victor LP was waiting to be signed. The day before, David, Buddy Groves and Kings bass player Carl Banks decided to take a quick flight to Houston in a rented Cessna 172 Skyhawk. ... Buddy Groves’ pal Bill Daniels was a qualified pilot. As they all climbed in and crammed into the single-engine four-seater, maybe the guys joked, as many musicians have, about Buddy Holly’s fateful flight. There were four of them, just as there were in that Beechcraft Bonanza. At least they’d be safe. Coincidences like that don’t happen. Not twice. Not with two guys who sang with The Crickets.

They took off from Hull Field, a private airport in Sugar Land. The Cessna supposedly had enough fuel for a two-hour flight. About fifteen minutes in, the plane disappeared. ... Glen Peters, a flight instructor from Houston, spotted the wreckage that Saturday morning. The aircraft lay upside down in a field in north Houston, about three miles west of Highway 75. The plane had apparently nosedived into the ground and flipped on impact. There were no survivors. Investigators would blame a defective fuel gauge. ... “It was a pleasure flight,” Rita said. “He and some of his musician friends from Houston decided they wanted to go up and it just did not end the way it should have. And so fate stepped in. Death takes a plane ride and David, he’s gone.” ... Rita was sixteen. “Right,” she said. “And I’m really not going to go there.”

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BURT KEARNS & JEFF ABRAHAM have written a book about performers who died on stage. THE SHOW WON’T GO ON will be published in 2019.

David Box

Birth name: Harold David Box
Born: August 11, 1943; Sulphur Springs, Texas, U.S.
Origin: Lubbock, Texas
Died: October 23, 1964 (aged 21); Houston, Texas
Genres: Rock and roll, rockabilly
Website: http://www.davidbox.net/

David Box (August 11, 1943 – October 23, 1964) was an American rock musician in the early 1960s. Box was influenced by fellow Texan Buddy Holly, and even took his place as singer of his group, The Crickets, for a short time after Holly's death. Box also collaborated with Roy Orbison, and found local success with his own group, the Ravens.

Surviving recordings show that David Box was equally comfortable doing cover versions of established songs ("That's All I Want from You," "Apache", etc.) and his own compositions. His vocal range was also flexible; in the upbeat songs he sounds somewhat like Buddy Holly, and in the ballads he is obviously influenced by Roy Orbison. Box recorded mostly for independent record labels, but his record of "Little Lonely Summer Girl" became a regional hit in the summer of 1964, and he was on the verge of signing a contract with RCA Victor in the fall.

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