PLEDGE WEEK BONUS: “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper

This is not a proper episode of the podcast.

Rather, this is something else.

I've decided to hold a pledge week to try to get a few more subscribers to my Patreon.

So, every day this week, I'll be putting one of the backer-only episodes I've done over the past year up on the main podcast feed, so people can hear what it is you get if you sign up for the Patreon, with this little introductory piece before them.

If you're already a backer, you will already have this episode, so you can skip this and everything else labelled Pledge Week.

I do one of these every week for my backers, and backers even at the lowest levels get them.

If you sign up for a dollar a month, you get each new one as it comes out, and access to all the old ones.

There are fifty nine of them up so far, as well as a few other things like the monthly Q and A's I've been doing for backers.

I'm only making seven of these available on the public feed, so there's a lot still there for you to listen to.

If this works well, I I might do another one next year, where there'll be another fifty-odd episodes to choose from.

None of this is meant to put any pressure on anyone who can't afford it to back the podcast.

The podcast will always remain free to listen to, and I hope it will remain ad-free as well.

I know times are especially tough right now, and many of you literally can't afford the money you're already spending, let alone paying any more out.

I only want backers who can spare the money.

But if you can afford it, and if you like these bonus episodes enough, then go to patreon.com/slash Andrew Hickey,

or follow the link in the show notes and sign up, and you'll get one of these the same day as every new episode.

If you can't, well, enjoy this extra free bonus and don't worry about it.

Since we looked at Richie Vallens in the main podcast last week, and this week we're looking at Buddy Holly, it's probably worth devoting this week's bonus podcast to the third person who died in that terrible plane crash.

The Big Bopper is known as a one-hit wonder who had a novelty hit, and these days, when he's remembered at all by rock and roll fans, it's simply because he died in the the same crash as Buddy Holly and Richie Vallons.

And certainly, his one big hit, Chantilly Lace, doesn't suggest he would have been one of the greats of music.

But J.P.

Richardson actually had rather more of a career than that might suggest, much of it posthumous.

Oh, you sweet man.

man.

Do I want?

Will I want?

Oh, baby, you know what I like.

Chantilly lace and a pretty face and a ponytail hanging down and a wiggling a walk and a giggling talk.

Giles Perry Richardson always liked to be known as Jape after his initials, but he developed a public persona from working as a DJ on KTRM radio, when he switched from his original show, The Dishwasher's Serenade, to a new one called The Bop.

While on KTRM, he took part in all sorts of publicity stunts, such as breaking the world record for longest uninterrupted broadcast by staying on the air for five days, two hours, and eight minutes straight, after which he apparently slept for 20 hours.

At KTRM, he got to know his fellow DJ George Jones, and he also got to know Pappy Daly, who was the promotion manager for Mercury Starday Records.

If you listen to the great country music podcast, Cocaine and Rhinestones, the episode on Shelby Singleton talks quite a bit about Daly.

Mercury Starday had been having some success with Records by Jones, who had hit the country top ten a few times, and Jape had written a few country songs, so he started recording for the label.

His first effort was a pure country ballad, released under the name Jape Richardson and the J-Pets.

I had sunk

as low

as a man

could go.

The world

had turned

down.

That did absolutely nothing sales-wise, so Richardson changed to a rockabilly style.

His next single, Monkey Song, didn't do much better.

I'm old and walker like a monkey.

I'm old to talk like a monkey.

Do checks it like a monkey

I get my kicks like a monkey

I'm on a climb a tree and wheel I'm on a swing

You made a monkey out of me

You made a monkey out of me

But the next song was much more successful Chantily Lace is the song that made the big bopper's name If you don't mind the objectification in the lyrics, there's a lot of charm to the song, and at the time it became a massive hit, and it's one that's still remembered to this day.

Chantilly lace and a birdie face, pony tail, a hanging down, a wiggle in a walk, and a giggle in a talk.

I know that in a world like a big-eyed girl, it makes me act so funny.

Spend my money, make me feel real loose, like a long neck, looser like a girl.

Out, baby, that's what I like.

The fact that it was intended as a novelty caching can be seen by its B side, which was originally its A side, The Purple People Eater meets the Witch Doctor, a team-up song inspired by the two novelty hits we talked about a few weeks ago.

my surprise.

The witch doctor sitting by his side.

The witch doctor had a little geta and his announcement.

They were popping and rocking with a two-piece band.

Purple was a blowin' like the people eater should.

Witch doctor picked like Johnny be good, they winner.

The single made the top ten, and it was followed up by The Big Boppa's Wedding, which was less successful but followed the same formula.

I never started thinking about a no more wicked after pretty little gals are popping by.

I know more dancing and a new romancing only made me want to sit down and cry.

Oh, no, boo, shooting at a rooting attitude and with the boys if I take you for my

I can't go low base, I gotta look at your face for the rest of my dog life.

This is it!

But then of course came the fateful tour we look at in this week's main podcast, and the big Bapa's death in a plane crash with two much more prominent musicians.

That should, by all lights, have been the end of his career.

But as it turned out, his two most important contributions to music hadn't yet been released.

Shortly before he died, Richardson had written a song called Running Bear, and he'd given it to a young friend of his, Johnny Preston.

It was a teen tragedy song, of the type that was a rather successful sub-genre of the time.

This one, with the novelty element, that the characters were Native Americans, or an Indian brave and Indian maid, as the song puts it, who lived on opposite banks of a river, and ended ended up drowning in the middle when they tried to be together.

He and George Jones had sung backing vocals on it, doing Hollywood Indian chanting, and generally playing up to every stereotype of the Western film Indian, but it hadn't been released at the time of Richardson's death.

When it was released a few months later, it went to number one and became one of the biggest hits of all time.

stood Running Bear,

young Indian Blade

On the other

side of the river

stood his lovely

Indian Maid,

little white dove

was her name

Such a lovely

sight to see

But their tribes

but with each other

So their love

could never be

Running Bear

But that wasn't Richardson's only posthumous contribution to music.

Richardson had already co-written a country top ten hit for George Jones, Treasure of Love.

I've got a pocket full of pennies,

but a heart full of gold.

Though my troubles are many,

I have treasures untold.

And the shack that I live in

is a palace to me

for the treasure of love, the treasure of love,

you gave to me.

But less than a week after Richardson's death, Jones went back into the studio again to record another song that Richardson had written for him.

Jones was

honestly sounds fine to me.

I'm moaning as he hit the ground.

Mighty, might it please and your papa's corn squeezing.

The GMM team in heaven is too

searching for a place where he may be

That became Jones' first country number one, and one of only three singles he ever released to also make the pop top 100.

It reached number 73, the highest he would ever reach in the pop charts.

While Jones had had country top 10 hits before, White Lightning is generally regarded as the breakout hit that made his career, a career that would last more than 50 more years, during which time he would have over 150 records make the country charts, 13 of them going to number 1.

That's more chart hits than any other act in history, and that career was owed, at least in part, to Jake Richardson, the one-hit wonder who died with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.

up and down, round and round will sway with these well

in the spell of the rolling rocking rhythm of the sea.