A few minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed in a cornfield near Mason City, Iowa killing the three rock stars instantly. Just one week after the crash, George Jones appeared at Nashville’s Quonset Hut to record “White Lightning” on February 9, 1959. He was highly inebriated, reportedly still in shock from his old friend J. P. Richardson’s death the week before. The arrangement on “White Lightning” called for a galloping bass riff to kick off the song, played by Buddy Killen.
At the time, Buddy was one of the top session bass players in Nashville, but ultimately gave up session work to devote all his time to running Tree Publishing Company which, under Killen’s leadership, came to surpass Acuff-Rose and Cedarwood as Nashville’s premiere song publishing company by the mid-1960s. At the session, Jones was so drunk that it was nearly impossible to get an acceptable recording from him on “White Lightning.” He flubbed take after take to the point that Buddy’s fingertips were bleeding and developing blisters from him having to play that opening bass riff on the song’s intro over and over.
He placed Band-Aids on his fingers to relieve the pain. After the 11th take (which Jones again flubbed), Killen said his fingers couldn’t take it anymore. He not only threatened to quit the session, but also offered to impose bodily harm on George for being drunk. Buddy’s thoughts were well-founded. It was very inconsiderate of Jones, or anybody else, to show up at a session drunk. Apparently George didn’t learn anything from that 1959 encounter with Killen, as he continued this practice for decades.