It's only March, yet there's already a winner for Rock 'n' Roll Comeback of the Year. Fifties rocker the Big Bopper -- or, to be clinically precise, his recently exhumed corpse -- is back on the scene and causing a commotion louder than his pinstriped zoot suit, size 52 Husky.

The original Notorious Big is best known for his proto-rap booty-call classic 'Chantilly Lace' (see clip above), a Top 10 hit in 1958. Now, almost half a century after the Bopper was killed in the 1959 plane crash that also took the lives of '50s rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, his earthly remains have been dug up to quash rumors that the fatal crash was caused by in-flight gunplay instigated by Holly. The rumor also postulates that the Bopper, real name J.P. Richardson, survived the accident but perished on the ground trying to escape.

According to Dr. Bill Bass, a forensic anthropologist hired by the Bopper's son Jay Richardson to set the record straight, there were no signs of foul play, and the Big Bopper was killed immediately from the impact and couldn't have walked or crawled away from the crash site. Watch for the 'CSI' version in upcoming months, replete with flashback sequences and riddled with rock-star turns: Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump will portray a character called something like "the Rotund Rocker," and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer will play a trigger-happy Buddy Holly type, natch. Read the full story.