Tommy Allsup

Tommy Douglas Allsup - 24 November 1931 – 11 January 2017

Tommy was an American Country, Rockabilly, and Western Swing guitarist who is most famous for narrowly escaping the 1959 plane crash that killed rock and roll icons Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

He was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and a highly prolific session musician whose career spanned more than six decades.

With a career spanning over six decades, he most famously worked with entertainers such as Buddy Holly, including playing lead guitar on "It's So Easy", "Heartbeat, "Lonesome Tears" & "Love's Made A Fool of You", as well as playing with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. He was originally slated to be on the plane which crashed in 1959, dubbed “The Day The Music Died”, but gave up his seat to Ritchie Valens after losing a coin toss.

His guitar playing was featured on several popular American albums from the 1960s and 70s, including “The Gambler” and "Kenny" by Kenny Rogers. In 2000, he along with Floyd Domino, Larry Franklin, Vince Gill & Steve Wariner won the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance for their work on Bob’s Breakdown by Asleep at the Wheel.

Tommy Allsup

Allsup was born near Owasso, Oklahoma, in 1931, on his Cherokee mother’s allotment. Tommy was the second youngest among his 12 siblings. He first learned to play a fiddle with just one string on it, and sang in musicals at school. In 1942, his family moved to Claremore, Oklahoma. After high school, he travelled playing music with other musicians around the U.S. Southwest, and also played in the historic Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. He later went to California to pursue music, and worked on an assembly line for General Motors while waiting for his Union membership. He was invited to play in a band with Jack Tucker, a musician in Southern California during the 1950s.

In 1958, Tommy met Buddy Holly at the Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, New Mexico. Buddy had heard and enjoyed Tommy's guitar playing, and he became the first musician to have recorded a guitar solo on a Buddy Holly record, “It’s So Easy.” Buddy told Tommy that he couldn’t play his solo, and asked him to come on tour with him and his band, The Crickets.

After the band and Buddy Holly parted ways, Buddy asked Tommy to tour with him on The Winter Dance Party Tour; Buddy's band consisted of Tommy, Waylon Jennings (bass), and Carl Bunch (drums). While touring with Buddy Holly and fellow headliners Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, he serendipitously lost a fateful coin toss with Ritchie Valens for a seat on the plane that crashed. The disaster killed everyone on board: Valens, Holly, Richardson, and also the young pilot Roger Peterson on February 3, 1959.

Investigators initially thought that Tommy had died in the crash because he had given Buddy his wallet so that Buddy could use Tommy's ID to claim a mailed letter on his behalf, and the initial Associated Press reports stated that Tommy Allsup was among the deceased. He saved the coin that saved his life, and later gave it to his first wife, who had it repurposed and made into a belt buckle.

Tommy then moved to Los Angeles, played with local bands, and did session work, including songwriting credits for The Ventures "Bluer Than Blue", "Guitar Twist", and "Opus Twist". Tommy is known to be playing the lead guitar for these tunes on The Ventures albums The Colorful Ventures and Twist With The Ventures. Tommy also played guitar on Bobby Vee recording sessions, including playing lead guitar on the album Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets. In 1964, he played guitar on the Buddy Holly tribute album The Buddy Holly Songbook produced by Norman Petty.

In 1968 Allsup became A & R Director of all Country and Western products for Liberty Records and began producing the great Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. His association with Wills lasted through Wills' "For The Last Time" LP, recorded on December 2-3, 1973, in Dallas, Texas, where Bob Wills recorded his first records in 1935. Allsup used some of the original Texas Playboys on the last recording (McAulliff, Shamblin, Dacus, Strickland). Bob Wills directed the sessions from his wheel chair.

He returned to Odessa, Texas in 1965, where he worked with Ronnie Smith, Roy Orbison, and producer Willie Nelson. He was also producer on the futuristic, prophetic trans-Atlantic and Australasian hit "In the Year 2525" by one-hit-wonder Zager & Evans. Later in 1968, he moved to Nashville, where he did session work and produced Bob Wills' 24 Great Hits by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. In the mid-1970s he served as the producer for a pair of Asleep at the Wheel albums.

In 1979, he started a club named Tommy's Heads Up Saloon in Fort Worth. The club was named for Allsup's coin toss with Valens 20 years beforehand.

In 2002, he married Caren Clowson in Parker County, Texas. Tommy had a son, Austin, who is also a musician and competed as a contestant on the 11th season of The Voice. In 2025, Austin donated the microphone last used by Buddy Holly to the venue where their last concert was played, the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

The last surviving member of Buddy Holly's touring band for the 1959 Winter Dance Party,

Tommy Allsup died on January 11, 2017, at 85 years old in a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, after complications from hernia surgery.