Joe B. Mauldin, bass player in Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, died Saturday (Feb. 7) in Nashville of cancer at the age of 74.

Born Joe Benson Mauldin Jr. in Lubbock, Texas, on July 8, 1940, Mauldin was just 16 when he joined the Crickets. His fellow band members at the time were drummer Jerry Allison and guitarist Niki Sullivan.

Later, vocalist and guitarist Sonny Curtis joined the band, and it would be that configuration that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, some 26 years after Holly was inducted on his own.

Mauldin continued to tour and record intermittently with the Crickets after Holly’s death in a plane crash in 1959. He also went on to work as a sound engineer at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles.

Mauldin’s funeral services will be private. His family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his name to the American Cancer Society or St. Jude Children’s Hospital.