Welcome to Pledge Week! I'm doing a week of posting some of the Patreon bonuses I've done, to encourage those who can to sign up to my Patreon.

ERRATUM:

My understanding when I did this episode was that "White Lightning" was recorded right after the Big Bopper's death. That is not actually the case -- Jones just turned up drunk to the session because he was drunk, not because of his friend's death, and they *released* the record a few days after Bopper's death.

Every day of Pledge Week will start with the same section, which I'll transcribe once, below, before the cut.

Pledge Week Intro

This is not a proper episode of the podcast. Rather, this is something else.

I've decided to hold a pledge week, to try to get a few more subscribers to my Patreon. So every day this week I'll be putting one of the backer-only episodes I've done over the past year up on the main podcast feed, so people can hear what it is you get if you sign up for the Patreon, with this little introductory piece before them. If you're already a backer, you will already have this episode, so you can skip this and everything else labelled "pledge week".

I do one of these every week for my backers, and backers even at the lowest levels get them -- if you sign up for a dollar a month you get each new one as it comes out, and access to all the old ones. There are fifty-nine of them up so far, as well as a few other things like the monthly Q&As I've been doing for backers. I'm only making seven of these available on the public feed, so there's a lot still there for you to listen to. If this works well, I might do another one next year, when there'll be another fifty-odd episodes to choose from.

None of this is meant to put any pressure on anyone who can't afford it to back the podcast -- the podcast will always remain free to listen to, and I hope it will remain ad-free as well. I know times are especially tough right now, and many of you literally can't afford the money you're already spending, let alone paying any more out. I only want backers who can spare the money.

But if you can afford it, and you like these bonus episodes enough, then go to patreon.com slash andrewhickey, that's spelled h-i-c-k-e-y, or follow the link in the shownotes, and sign up, and you'll get one of these the same day as every new episode. If you can't, well... enjoy this extra free bonus, and don't worry about it.

Transcript behind cut



Since we looked at Ritchie Valens in the main podcast last week, and this week we're looking at Buddy Holly, it's probably worth devoting this week's bonus podcast to the third person who died in that terrible plane crash.

The Big Bopper is known as a one-hit wonder who had a novelty hit, and these days when he's remembered at all by rock and roll fans it's simply because he died in the same crash as Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. And certainly his one big hit, "Chantilly Lace", doesn't suggest he would have been one of the greats of music. But J.P. Richardson actually had rather more of a career than that might suggest, much of it posthumous:

[Excerpt: The Big Bopper, "Chantilly Lace"]

Jiles Perry Richardson always liked to be known as "Jape", after his initials, but he developed a public persona from working as a DJ on KTRM radio, when he switched from his original show, "the Dishwashers' Serenade", to a new one called "the Bop". While on KTRM he took part in all sorts of publicity stunts, such as breaking the world record for longest uninterrupted broadcast by staying on the air for five days, two hours, and eight minutes straight, after which he apparently slept for twenty hours.

At KTRM he got to know his fellow DJ George Jones, and he also got to know Pappy Daily, who was the promotion manager for Mercury Starday records (If you listen to the great country music podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones, the episode on Shelby Singleton talks quite a bit about Daily). Mercury Starday had been having some success with records by Jones, who had