KENOSHA, Wis. — Carolyn Lucas had a front-row account of rock ‘n roll history.
The 79-year-old Bristol resident was one of 1,500 star-struck teenagers who packed the Eagles Ballroom to see heartthrobs Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson on Jan. 24, 1959.
It was 10 days before the day the music died.
“I still to this day don’t know how I was right up front, right against the stage,” Lucas said. “I have no idea. I know we didn’t go early. I must have had sharp elbows at that time.”
The sold-out show was the second stop of the infamous Winter Dance Party Tour. The tour opened the previous night at George Devine’s Ballroom in Milwaukee.
Holly, Valens and Richardson died on Feb. 3, 1959 when their plane crashed on a cold, snowy night in Clear Lake, Iowa.
“It sure was unbelievable that we had just seen them and been there with them,” Lucas said. “So sad.”
The tragedy was immortalized as “The Day the Music Died” in singer and Hall of Fame songwriter Don McLean’s 1971 hit “American Pie.”
The Kenosha stop was one of the tour’s final performances. It was documented by Kenosha wedding photographer Tony Szikil.
Szikil was downstairs at the Eagles Ballroom shooting the wedding for Kenosha’s Dale and Jean Nelson, while the show was rocking upstairs. He said he asked the wedding party multiple times to wrap things up only to be stalled with more photo requests.
“(The concert) really wasn’t that big of deal to them,” said Glen Nelson, the son of Dale and Jean Nelson. “I think it kind of stole their thunder a little bit.”
Once Szikil sprinted up the stairs, he snapped as many photos as possible. They’ve been shared around the world, documenting a significant piece of rock ‘n roll history.
Lucas and her future husband Ray Lucas both attended the concert. Carolyn not only had a front-row view but also got to meet the performers after the show.
It made for an incredible scrapbook that she kept for years.
“I had the luck of getting so many autographs of everybody,” Lucas said. “I had the book. Even the pencil they used on little pieces of scratch paper. And, stupidly, I did sell it years later. I sold the whole scrapbook.”
While the scrapbook is gone, the memories remain.
“We were young teenagers, out having a good time,” Ray Lucas said.
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