The Surf is closely associated with the event known colloquially as "The Day the Music Died" - early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson gave their last performances at the Surf on February 2, 1959 as part of the "Winter Dance Party Tour".
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The accident took place on the same day that a plane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all three singers.
Hailing from Beaumont, Texas, Charles is the author of a song called "Beaumont Boys", which paid homage to many of the musicians from his hometown, including The Big Bopper, Johnny and Edgar Winter, and Harry James.
After Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash in February 1959, a then-teenaged Vee was one of a group of local musicians recruited to play at the next leg of a scheduled concert in Fargo, North Dakota.
The town of Clear Lake is known as the place the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens took off from on the day they died; their last performance was at the Surf Ballroom.
Valens, along with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson, perished two years after the Pacoima crash when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza crashed near Mason City, Iowa in the early morning hours of February 3, 1959.