“Their voices still echo every time I close my eyes.” On February 3, 1959, Waylon Jennings surrendered his seat on a plane in Iowa.

On the brutally cold night of February 3, 1959, a diminutive Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft lifted off from Mason City, Iowa, carrying a cargo of rock and roll’s brightest and most rapidly ascending stars: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. Within hours, the plane tragically plunged into a frozen cornfield just outside Clear Lake, Iowa, claiming the lives …