Guitarist who avoided Buddy Holly plane crash dies at 85

[Fansome]

Guitarist who avoided Buddy Holly plane crash dies at 85

Published Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 | 5:32 p.m.

Updated 16 minutes ago

HOUSTON (AP) — Tommy Allsup, a guitarist best known for losing a coin toss that kept him off a plane that later crashed and killed rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson, has died. He was 85.

Singer and musician Austin Allsup says his father died Wednesday at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, due to complications from a hernia operation.

Tommy Allsup was part of Holly's band when the Lubbock, Texas, singer died in the 1959 plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. Allsup flipped a coin to see if he or Valens would get a seat on the plane.

Austin Allsup said Thursday his father took losing the coin toss as a blessing and "knew that he was very lucky to be here."

[Pigmeat]

That old Best of album he produced for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a permanent spot on my turntable in my teens. I can still do an uncanny Bob Wills imitation, "Ahhh, play it Jody!" (You've got to do it with cigar in your mouth like Bob.)

I've got a dobro playing buddy and know several passable fiddle players. It might be time to put Pigmeat and His Hogpen Holler Ramblers back together and on the radio. I think I'll use several transmitters spaced ten khz apart between 6765 and 6995 so everyone can enjoy it.

We'll play some old timey classics like "Cat Sh!t In The Shavings" and "Granny Does Your Dog Bite?" before transitioning into Bob's stuff like "Take Me Back To Tulsa" and "Stay All Night". Of course, Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams will be featured, too. Hank gives me the chance to show my innate yodeling skills and my handling of the Texas Troubadours material will show the great injustice dealt to me when I was removed from the list of people as a possible replacement Ernest Tubb by the Nashville Branch of the Illuminati. (They were ticked because I made fun of 'Twitty City'. They were convinced they were going to make a pile off an amusement park based on a fading star with a giant pompadour. You couldn't have Big Ern's replacement making fun of a guy with the hair helmet that ruled country from the 60's on.)

The Nashville Illuminati isn't all bad. When they cut off wireless to the hotels during the annual National Penguin Show, you should hear the squawking. You've got to like a secret society with sense of humor.

I might sing "Waltz Across Texas" for Corq. There are behind the screen rumors Corq is actually, shhhh...., a gurl. If so, the other fellas sniffin' around might as well give up. There's not a woman alive that can resist man who can yodel and juggle bowling balls at the same time. I'm passable with chainsaws, but I don't get to practice much. Something about the sight of a man with a large black beard wielding chainsaws or even flaming batons that gets the neighbors antsy? The same with guns, hatchets, and machetes. If they're scared, they should get a dog.

I wonder if I could get a dog to catch a chainsaw and flip it back to me? I bet the Flying Karamazov Brothers couldn't pull that one off, that gang of Uzbek's!