Almanac Poetry: Big Bopper Junior Meets His Late Father
The Big Bopper, 1958. [Wikimedia Commons.]
Big Bopper Junior Meets His Late Father
J. P. Richardson Junior
successfully obtained
a forensic study
of his father’s corpse
in 2007,
to confirm or refute the theory
that Bopper Senior initially survived
the plane crash in an icy cornfield
in Clear Lake, Iowa,
forty eight years earlier,
a catastrophe that killed
all on board –
Buddy Holly, Richie Valens
and Peterson the pilot,
as well as himself.
The theory of initial survival
arose from finding Bopper Senior’s body
forty feet from the others.
Did Senior not die immediately
and crawled for help
before succumbing to injuries?
That was the question.
J. P. Junior and his fellow
attendees at the coffin’s opening,
saw a corpse in remarkably good condition.
(A waterproof steel casket did its work.)
The coiffed crewcut was intact
and the figure,
dressed in a plain black suit
and blue-and-grey striped tie,
at odds with its flamboyant subject,
recognisably that of the Bopper,
in spite of a slightly shrunken head,
bloated hands and feet
and bluish skin.
(Oh, and there was the smell,
the terrible smell.)
The examining doctor concluded,
on the basis of x-ray analysis,
that virtually every bone
in the body had been broken
and the original Bopper
died on impact,
his body flung
away from the other three.
Aside from incidental comments
and his removal of a lock
of the ol’ rocker’s hair,
Bopper Junior declared,
concerning the father he never knew,
being born three months
after Senior’s death:
‘Dad looked in pretty good shape, really.’
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
Kevin Densley’s latest poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws…I’m Feeling Too Indolent, is available HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His sixth book-length poetry collection, Isle Full of Noises, was published in early 2026 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
There have been three movies and the famous song about this incident. There was a doco about all the rock and country stars killed in plane crashes about this time and over the next two decades – Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, John Denver and many more. It shocked me how many we lost this way. For all our safety standards here in Australia we have lost many people in light plane crashes over the years.
And November 1959 was doubly cursed. There is current interest in the Clutter family murders 15.11.59 which shocked America and was written up by Truman Capote in his novel “In Cold Blood”. A truly awful end to the decade.
But there’s more. The deaths of these young rock stars, along with the scandals which enveloped Chuck Berry
and Jerry Lee Lewis, ushered in the era of “the Bobbies” – clean middle of the road pop music which lasted until the Beatles came along…
Thanks for this interesting material, George. As a contrast to the usual narrative of the Clear Lake crash itself and the four fatalities, my poem mainly deals with the highly odd ‘meeting’ of a son and his long-dead father.
Bizarrely fascinating. I wonder if the President of Egypt ever went to the Tutankhamun tomb so he could meet his mummy?
Thanks for your comments, PB. JP Richardson Junior, who died around 2013, also did a musical act in which he impersonated his famous father. He looked a lot like Bopper Snr, too. The truth gets curiouser and curiouser…