Buddy Holly and the Crickets Riverside Ballroom Winter Dance Party Concert Poster – 1959

Music Poster: Buddy Holly and the Crickets Riverside Ballroom Winter Dance Party Concert Poster – 1959

This poster was used to advertise the Winter Dance Party show at Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1959.The show included performance by Frankie Sardo, Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, Jiles Perry Richardson Jr, better known as The Big Bopper and headlining act Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

It was the tenth show of a gruelling tour that was supposed to offer 24 Mid Western shows in 24 days. Little or no regard was given to the logistics of the tour, with some venues being over 300 miles apart. The particularly brutal winter weather conditions often meant journeys took up to 12 hours between shows. The tour started on January 23 in Milwaukee and zig-zagged back and forth across Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

The musicians on the bill shared a converted school bus that not only kept breaking down but had no heater. After the show at Duluth on January 31st, the band loaded up the van to head to Green Bay for their Riverside gig. Almost inevitably, the bus gave out again about 10 miles outside Hurley. It was the middle of the night and temperatures were reported to be 20-30 degrees below. 

After a several hour delay, the band were rescued by passing motorists and made it to Green Bay. Carl Bunch, the Crickets drummer at the time, didn’t, He had to be hospitalised having suffered frostbite in his feet.

The band made the show turning up on stage in their usual tour outfits. An article titled The Last Days of Buddy Holly, by Jonathan Cotton on the Rolling Stone website describes how the bands looked.” Throughout the tour, the Big Bopper sported a Stetson and a three-quarter leopard-skin coat that he called Melvin. Valens dressed in a blue satin shirt, black bolero and vaquero pants. And Buddy and the Crickets were clothed in black jackets, gray slacks and ascots”.

At the ballroom that night, the artists performed their hits. An accurate setlist for Buddy Holly’s performance at the Riverside isn’t available many of the shows will have performed very similar set’s on every date of the tour. For the previous night’s show, Buddy and the Crickets performed Gotta Travel On, a Paul Clayton cover, Salty Dog Rag, a Red Foley cover, It Doesn’t Matter Any More written by Paul Anka, the self-penned Peggy Sue, That’ll Be the Day, It’s So Easy and Everyday, the Sonny West songs Oh Boy! and Rave On! along with a Bobby Darin cover, Early in the Morning.  For the finale, they all came on stage for a jam that included “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” “La Bamba” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

The following morning, it was still 19 degrees below zero as the musicians boarded another bus for the 340-mile journey to Clear Lake. A delay to repair the bus heaters that had once again failed meant the band only just arrived in time for their 8 pm performance at the Ballroom. The show was attended by more than 1,200 teenagers who had each paid $1.25 to gain entry to the show.

It was on the bus ride to Clear Lake, BHolly decided he’d had enough of the road and vowed the band would charter an airplane to fly to dates for the rest of the tour. Upon arriving at the Surf Ballroom, Holly asked the manager to charter a flight for the 400-mile journey from Clearlake to Moorhead.

After an energetic show at the Surf Ballroom, Buddy, his bassist, Waylon Jennings, and guitarist, Tommy Allsup, were ready to board the plane. However, because The Big Bopper was suffering badly with the flu, the young Jennings graciously offer him his seat on the plane.

Valens had been badgering Allsup all evening trying to persuade him to swap places on the plane. The request was met with an emphatic “No”. Eventually, Valens said, “Let’s flip a coin for it.”

According to the Rolling Stone article, Allsup in an interview with Phillip Norman the author of the biography, Buddy, Allsup recounted “I don’t know why, because I’d been telling him no all evening, but I pulled a half dollar out of my pocket. I’ve never understood what made me — it just happened. I flipped the 50-cent piece and said, ‘Call it.’ Ritchie said, ‘Heads,’ and it came down heads.

The plane took off at 12:55 a.m. Just minutes into the flight, the plane crashed into a frozen cornfield six miles northwest of Mason City, Iowa airport. Holly, Valens, Richardson, and Peterson, the pilot, were killed instantly.

The rarity of this poster in its original form can be gauged by the offer of $10,000 cash by some poster sites. If they’re happy to offer $10,000, what on earth is an original poster actually worth.

1959 Winter Dance Party Tour Dates:

Jan. 23: George Devine’s Ballroom, Milwaukee
Jan. 24: Eagles Ballroom, Kenosha
Jan. 25: Kato Ballroom, Mankato, Minnesota
Jan. 26: Fournier’s Ballroom, Eau Claire
Jan. 27: Fiesta Ballroom, Montevideo, Minnesota
Jan. 28: Promenade Ballroom, St. Paul, Minnesota
Jan. 29: Capitol Theater, Davenport, Iowa
Jan. 30: Laramar Ballroom, Fort Dodge, Iowa
Jan. 31: Duluth Armory, Duluth, Minnesota

Feb. 1: Riverside Ballroom, Green Bay
Feb. 2: Clear Lake, Iowa

The tour continued after the Feb. 3 plane crash with a show at The Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Feb. 3: The Armory, Moorhead
Feb. 4: Sioux City
Feb. 5: Val Air Ballroom, Des Moines
Feb. 6: Danceland Ballroom, Cedar Rapids
Feb. 7: Les Buzz Ballroom, Spring Valley
Feb. 8: Aragon Ballroom, Chicago
Feb. 9: Hippodrome Auditorium, Waterloo
Feb. 10: Melody Hill, Duburque
Feb. 11: Memorial Auditorium, Louisville
Feb. 12: Memorial Auditorium, Canton
Feb. 13: Stambaugh Auditorium Youngstown
Feb. 14: The Armory, Peoria
Feb. 15: Illinois State Armory, Springfield

The Winter Dance Party poster was printed by Murray Poster Printing of New York City and measures 14 x 22 inches in size. It features a photo of each artist and was designed with a simple black and yellow poster scheme. The tour was put on by General Artists Corporation. The promoter was responsible for putting together large tours for the cutting-edge acts of the day. The basic image of the Winter Dance poster was used across the tour, with text added to the generic poster from venue to venue to provide concert details, venue location and where to buy tickets. It is surprising how different the poster still appear for the dates on this tour.

Our posters are carefully and professionally created from vintage originals. Whilst great care is taken in the production of these posters, we also try to maintain a vintage feel, so there may be small imperfections, fold marks, scuffs, tears, or marks that were part of the original poster master. If these do appear they should be visible on the larger views of the item on this listing. The originals of many of the posters we offer can cost many thousands of pounds, so whilst these posters look great, especially framed and mounted on a wall, they are intended as fun, affordable reproductions and not intended fine art prints.

The 50x70cm version has been specially produced to be used in conjunction with Ikea’s 50x70cm Ribba picture frame which currently retails for around £12. So you can bag a bargain of print and poster for just £22.