This past week was the 55th anniversary of “The Day the Music Died” – when the plane carrying Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Richie Valens went down in Iowa, killing them and the pilot. When reading the Wikipedia article on Buddy, this paragraph stood out:
Although Holly had already begun to become disillusioned with [his manager] Norman Petty before meeting Maria Elena, it was through her and her aunt Provi, the head of Latin American music at Peer-Southern, that he began to fully realize what was going on with his manager, who was paying the band’s royalties into his own company’s account. Holly was having trouble getting his royalties from Petty, so he hired the noted lawyer Harold Orenstein at the recommendation of his friends the Everly Brothers, who had engaged Orenstein following disputes with their own manager, Wesley Rose. Yet, with the money still being withheld by Petty and with rent due, Buddy was forced to go back on the road.
[And that’s how he ended up dead in a plane crash in Iowa…]