Tommy Allsup born 24 November 1931

Thomas Douglas Allsup (November 24, 1931 – January 11, 2017) was a premier Western-swing guitarist, as well as a music producer,

Tommy Allsup was born on his Cherokee mother's allotment near Owasso Oklahoma. He was the twelfth of thirteen children in a musical family. When he was young, the family moved to Claremore, and in 1947, as a sophomore in high school, Allsup and some of his friends organized a Western-style band and called

themselves the Oklahoma Swing Billies.  

After high school he went to work with fiddle player Art Davis in Miami, Oklahoma; from there to the Cowboy Inn in Wichita, Kansas with singer, fiddle player Jimmy Hall. In 1952 and 1953, he moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma to join the "Johnnie Lee Wills Band." From 1953 to 1958, he had his own band, "The Southernaires" in Lawton, Oklahoma with home base being the Southern Club.

Bob Wills, Tommy Allsup & Johnnie Lee Wills

In 1958, Tommy's career would take a different direction. On a trip to Clovis, New Mexico to record at Norman Petty's famous studio, he met the late Buddy Holly. In April, he started playing lead guitar with Holly and the Crickets on "It's So Easy!" and "Lonesome Tears" as well as playing with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys.

He continued playing with Buddy until the fatal plane crash that took Buddy's life, along with the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. It was Allsup who flipped a coin with Ritchie Valens for a seat on the ill-fated plane.  Investigators initially thought that Allsup had died in the crash due to the fact that he had given Holly his wallet so that Holly could use Allsup's ID to claim a mailed letter on his behalf.

After Holly's death, in 1959 Allsup moved to Los Angeles where he played with local bands, and did session work, including a songwriting credit for The Ventures, "Guitar Twist". He returned to Odessa, Texas, where he worked with Ronnie Smith, Roy Orbison, and producer Willie Nelson. He was also producer on the futuristic, prophetic trans-Atlantic & Australasian hit, "In the Year 2525" by one-hit-wonders Zager & Evans.

Tommy with Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin & earl Sinks

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.

              Here's "That'll be The Day! from above album.

                              

While at Liberty, Tommy would produce Tex Williams, Willie Nelson, Joe Carson, Warren Smith, Billy Mize, and Cliff Crofford. While there, he worked with great artists such as Walter Brennan, Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette, Julie London, and Vickie Carr, who sang harmony with Bob Wills on the LP "Bob Wills Sings and Plays."

After leaving California, Allsup moved to Nashville to head up Metromedia Records in 1968. In 1972, he met Ray Benson and Asleep At The Wheel and produced their first LP for United Artist Records. Later he produced 4 LPs for Capitol Records with the group. 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.

Tommy Allsup had been a big supporter of Western Swing music over the years. He had produced 5 LPs with the great Hank Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys, 2 LPs with the Original Texas Playboys, and 2 LPs with the great Western Swing vocalist Leon Rausch. Tommy produced Swing LPs with Jody Nix, Curley Chalker, Mack Sanders, Johnny Bush, Willie Nelson, Tex Williams, and Billy Mize.

In 2004 Tommy Allsup lived in Texas where he operated a recording studio. Tommy, who had few regrets, once said: "I never really wanted to be a big star; I figured I'd leave that to someone else."

The last surviving member of Buddy Holly's "touring" Crickets for the 1959 Winter Dance Party, Tommy died on January 11, 2017, at 85 years old in a hospital in Springfield, Missouri after complications from hernia surgery.

(Edited from Wikipedia and rockabillyhall.com)