Flashback: Dion & The Belmonts Reunite At Madison Square Garden - Sunny 92 3 sunny923.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sunny923.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It was 64 years ago today (February 3rd, 1959) that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash after a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa. The three had been performing along with Dion & The Belmonts as part of the Winter Dance Party Tour, which would cover 24 cities in a short three-week period from January 23rd to February 15th. Holly, who had parted ways with longtime backing group the Crickets the previous year, was backed up by a then-unknown Waylon Jennings on bass, Carl Bunch on drums, and Tommy Allsup on lead guitar. Dion DiMucci says that although the shows were always hot, his favorite moments from the tour were jamming on the near freezing bus on the way to the next town: ["Well, we used to play in the back of the bus Ritchie Valens, myself and Buddy
It was 62 years ago Sunday (October 16th, 1960) that Dion announced his split from the Belmonts. Dion, whose last name is DiMucci, had been a member of the Bronx, New York street gang the Fordham Baldies when he joined musical forces with Carlo Mastrangelo, Freddy Milano, and Angelo D'Aleo, who were part of a rival gang, the Imperial Hoods. The resulting group took their name from the Bronx's Belmont Avenue. In 1958, the Belmonts' first Top 40 hit, "I Wonder Why," came to define Italian-American doo wop, and the group went on to have seven more Top 40 hits with Dion, including the Top Tens "A Teenager In Love" and "Where Or When." The group was fourth on the bill to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson during the ill-fated February 1959 Winter Dance Party tour, which took the lives of the '50s rock legends. By August of 1960, Dion was making plans to forge ahead with a solo career, and went on to b
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