Exhuming the Big Bopper

I thought I knew this story pretty well, but I guess there's a lot for me to learn.

Son seeks answers in Big Bopper's death

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee -- The son of the Big Bopper has hired a forensic anthropologist to try to answer questions about how his father died in the 1959 plane crash that also took the lives of early rock 'n' rollers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

Jay Richardson, who performs tribute shows as the Big Bopper Jr., hopes an examination of his father's remains will settle rumours about a gun that might have been fired on board the plane, and tell if the Big Bopper might have survived the crash impact and died trying to go for help.

"I'm not looking for any great bombshell, but then again you never know," Richardson said in a recent phone interview from his home outside Houston.

J.P (the Big Bopper) Richardson is buried in Beaumont, Texas. After his remains are studied they will be reburied and a life-sized statue put up beside the grave.

Jay Richardson never knew his father, who soared to rock fame with his late '50s hit, Chantilly Lace. His mother was pregnant with him when his father died.

I can certainly understand how a survivor--even a posthumously-born survivor--would want to know the truth about how his father died, or if he survived only to die of injuries later. I can see why he might want to know if there was foul play involved.

But I can't help but think that this is, at least partly, an attempt to redress the representations of that tragic crash in film. In both The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba, the death of the Big Bopper is an afterthought, somehow less serious or less tragic because he was slightly older (28 to Holly's 23 and Valens'18) and, you know, not the protagonist in either film. In both, he's represented as being kind of loud and annoying, even being portrayed by Hee Haw regular Gailard Sartain in the Holly film.

So I can definitely understand why Richardson would be anxious to restore his father's reputation and possibly find something redemptive in his death. If, as it turns out, he was going for help, that would transform him from clown to hero, no? If he was shot, he becomes a victim. In either case, he ceases to be an afterthought.

But it's also true that Richardson appears to perform professional tribute shows as The Big Bopper Jr. Slightly creepy, I guess, but hey, it's a living. Adjusting his father's reputation would certainly affect his earning potential. Which isn't to say this isn't a genuine quest for truth, just noting that it might have some other effects.