Welcome to American Nightmares, the podcast dedicated to America's history of horror.

Through sinister tales of murder, madness, mayhem, spirits, scandals and sins,

I'll be presenting the origins of American terror in every form, starting of course with

our exploration of the devil in all his works.

American Nightmares is written, performed by Troy Taylor. That's me. And I want to thank you

for joining me for episode 24, a special requested episode of the devil's music about Bobby

Fuller and the Buddy Holly curse.

You know the story already.

The day the music died was February 3rd, 1959, when a plane crash in Iowa claimed the

lives of rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Richie Valens,

and JP Big Bopper Richardson.

But the plane crash didn't affect just those who died on that terrible morning.

In the wake of their deaths, a story began about a curse that was connected to Buddy Holly and his music.

Tragedy stalked many others with links to Buddy, like Eddie Cochran, a friend of both

buddies and Richie Valens, who died in a car accident the following year.

Members of Buddy's band, The Crickets, were also plagued by bad luck.

One of them, Ronnie Smith, took his own life

after being sent to a mental hospital. A young man named David Box was hired by the crickets

to replace Buddy in the band and died in a plane crash in 1964. Gary Busey, the actor who played

Buddy Holly in a film about his life, suffered a near-fatal motor accident, which nearly destroyed his career.

Rick Nelson, who had his own music career in the 1950s, recorded some of Buddy's music and was playing on the nostalgia circuit when he was killed in his own plane crash on December 30th, 1985.

Del Shannon, another rock and roll star who gained fame around the same time as Buddy Holly,

...