HILLSBORO — It was the first rock ‘n’ roll tragedy. It’s been immortalized in song as “the day the music died.” And now memories of the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, better known as the Big Bopper, are literally being resurrected. The rusted gold coffin that once contained the Big Bopper’s body is going on display at the fledgling Texas Musicians Museum in Hillsboro. Don’t worry, the body isn’t inside.

It was reburied in March in a new casket in Beaumont’s Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The old, empty casket is scheduled to arrive in Hillsboro on Saturday in a 1949 hearse, accompanied by a floral arrangement similar to the one at his funeral. “It is kind of an odd thing to display,” said Thomas Kreason, director of the Texas Musicians Museum, who used to work for the Hard Rock Cafe in Dallas and Sun Studios in Memphis.

“We knew there might be some people who might view it as a morbid kind of thing, but we felt it was a very positive thing.” It will likely stay on display for about a month, perhaps longer if it generates enough interest. The Big Bopper’s son, Jay P. Richardson of Katy, hopes the display will generate attention to his father’s career. “There may be hatemongers who don’t think it’s right, but I don’t worry about them,” Richardson said. “If you don’t want to see it, don’t see it.

It was my father’s casket; he was in it for 48 years. That’s a piece of metal you’re looking at. If you got a problem with it, I got other things to worry about.” He also hopes the attention to the casket and a movie that is scheduled to start shooting soon will eventually lead to his father’s induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, alongside Holly and Valens. “I don’t want my dad in the Hall of Fame because he died with Buddy Holly,” Richardson said.