Ritchie Valens
Richard Steven Valenzuela, better known by his stage name Ritchie Valens, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens died in a plane crash just eight months after his breakthrough.
Valens had several hits, most notably "La Bamba", which he had adapted from a Mexican folk song. Valens transformed the song into one with a rock rhythm and beat, and it became a hit in 1958, making Valens a pioneer of the Spanish-speaking rock and roll movement. He also had an American number-two hit with "Donna".
On February 3, 1959, on what has become known as "The Day the Music Died", Valens died in a plane crash in Iowa, an accident that also claimed the lives of fellow musicians Buddy Holly and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as pilot Roger Peterson. Valens was 17 years old at the time of his death. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame, the California Hall of Fame, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life
Valens was born as Richard Steven Valenzuela on May 13, 1941, in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. The son of Joseph Steven Valenzuela and Concepción "Concha" Reyes, he had two half-brothers, Robert "Bob" Morales and Mario Ramirez, and two younger sisters, Connie and Irma. His parents were from the town of Vícam, Sonora, and were both of Yaqui indigenous ancestry, having immigrated to the United States in search of a better life. Although Valenzuela is not a Yaqui surname, many indigenous families adopted it during the Porfiriato dictatorship to avoid forcible removal from their lands, similar to the case of Fernando Valenzuela, who was of Mayo ancestry.Valenzuela was brought up hearing traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well as flamenco guitar, R&B, and jump blues. He expressed an interest in making music of his own by the age of five. Valenzuela was encouraged by his father to take up guitar and trumpet, and later taught himself the drums. Though Valenzuela was left-handed, he was so eager to learn the guitar that he mastered the traditional right-handed version of the instrument.
Valenzuela was a 15-year-old student at Pacoima Junior High School at the time of the 1957 Pacoima mid-air collision. He was not at school that day since he was attending his grandfather's funeral. Recurring nightmares of the disaster led to Valens's fear of flying.
By the time Valenzuela was attending Pacoima Junior High School, he would bring his guitar to school and sing and play songs to his friends on the bleachers. When Valenzuela was 16 years old, he was invited to join a local band, The Silhouettes. Valenzuela began as a guitarist, and when the main vocalist left the group, he took over the position. On June 19, 1957, Valenzuela made his performing debut with The Silhouettes.
Valenzuela also attended San Fernando High School.
Career
A self-taught musician, Valenzuela was an accomplished singer and guitarist. At his appearances, Valenzuela often improvised new lyrics and added new riffs to popular songs while he was playing.Bob Keane, the owner and president of small record label Del-Fi Records in Hollywood, was given a tip in May 1958 by San Fernando High School student Doug Macchia about a young performer from Pacoima by the name of Richard Valenzuela. Kids knew the performer as "the Little Richard of San Fernando". Swayed by the Little Richard comparison, Keane went to see Valenzuela play a Saturday-morning matinée at a movie theater in San Fernando. Impressed by the performance, he invited Valenzuela to audition at his home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, where he had a small recording studio in his basement. His recording equipment comprised an early stereo recorder and a pair of Neumann U-47 condenser microphones.
After this first audition, Keane signed Valenzuela to Del-Fi on May 14, 1958. At this point, the musician took the name "Ritchie" because, as Keane said, "There were a bunch of 'Richards' around at that time, and I wanted it to be different." Similarly, Keane recommended shortening his surname to "Valens" from Valenzuela to widen his appeal beyond any obvious ethnic group. Valens was ready to enter the studio with a full band backing him. The musicians included René Hall, Carol Kaye, and Earl Palmer. The first songs recorded at Gold Star Studios, at a single studio session one afternoon in May 1958, were "Come On, Let's Go", an original, credited to Valens/Kuhn, and "Framed", a Leiber and Stoller tune. Pressed and released within days of the recording session, the record was a success. Valens' next record, a double A-side, had the song "Donna" coupled with "La Bamba". It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America.
By the autumn of 1958, the demands of Valens's career forced him to drop out of high school. Keane booked appearances at venues across the United States and performances on television programs.
Concerts and appearances (late 1958–early 1959)
On October 6, 1958, Valens made his first appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand singing "Come On, Let's Go". Soon after, Valens traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii, to perform under the banner of the "11th Show of Stars". On December 10, 1958, after his trip to Honolulu, Valens made an appearance back at Pacoima Junior High School. This concert was posthumously released as Ritchie Valens in Concert at Pacoima Jr. High; it was Valens' only live performance ever recorded. In mid-December 1958, Valens left for New York City. Keane had managed to book him as a late addition to "Alan Freed's Christmas Jubilee Show" where Valens performed with The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Eddie Cochran and others. On December 27, Valens performed "Donna" on The Dick Clark Show. He played a few more shows in New York, including his only performance at the famous Apollo Theater. On January 17, 1959, he appeared at West Covina High School with Sam Cooke for a student organized fundraiser called "The Teen Canteen Foundation".Personal life
Valens was in a relationship with Donna Ludwig, his high school sweetheart, from 1957 until his death. Ludwig's parents disapproved of her dating a Hispanic boy. Valens's song "Donna" was written for her. Their relationship became strained due to Valens' increasing popularity and touring. After his death, Elvis Presley had one of his bodyguards arrange a date with Ludwig so that he could know all about Valens. In 1987, she attended the premiere of La Bamba, a biopic featuring the life and career of Valens.Winter Dance Party tour and death (1959)
Valens was one of the five acts billed for the Winter Dance Party tour, performing with Buddy Holly, "The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson, Dion and the Belmonts, and Frankie Sardo beginning on January 23, 1959, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The tour was plagued by subzero temperatures and numerous logistical problems. The unheated tour buses twice broke down in freezing weather, with Valens and Richardson experiencing flu-like symptoms throughout the tour. After the bus stalled in Duluth, Minnesota on January 31, conditions were so bad that Holly's drummer, Carl Bunch, was hospitalized for severe frostbite sustained on the bus. To fill in for Bunch, Holly, Valens, and Carlo Mastrangelo of The Belmonts all took turns drumming for one another.After the February 2, 1959, performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly, Richardson, and Valens flew out of the Mason City airport in a small plane that Holly had chartered. Valens was on the plane since he won a coin toss with Holly's backup guitarist Tommy Allsup. Bob Hale, a disc jockey with Mason City's KRIB-AM, was emceeing the concert that night and flipped the coin in the ballroom's side-stage room shortly before the musicians departed for the airport. Valens is apocryphally said to have remarked, "That's the first time I've ever won anything in my life." Holly's bassist, Waylon Jennings, voluntarily gave up his seat on the plane to J.P. Richardson, who was ill with the flu.
At around 12:55 a.m. on February 3, 1959, the four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza,, departed for Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed a few minutes after takeoff. The cause was apparently loss of control by the pilot Roger Peterson, who was not qualified for the deteriorating weather. The crash killed all four men instantly upon impact. As with Holly, Richardson and Peterson, Valens suffered massive fatal head injuries along with blunt-force trauma to the chest. At the age of 17, Valens was the youngest to die in the crash.
The tragedy inspired singer Don McLean to write his 1971 hit "American Pie", immortalizing February 3 as "The Day the Music Died". Valens was buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California.
Legacy
Valens was a pioneer of Chicano rock and Latin rock, inspiring many musicians of Mexican heritage. He influenced the likes of Los Lobos, Los Lonely Boys, and Carlos Santana, as Valens had become nationally successful at a time when very few Latinos were in American rock and pop music. He is considered the first Latino to successfully cross over into mainstream rock."La Bamba" proved to be his most influential recording, not only by becoming a pop chart hit sung entirely in Spanish, but also because of its successful blending of traditional Latin American music with rock. Valens was the first to capitalize on this formula, which was later adopted by such varied artists as Carlos Santana, Selena, Caifanes, Café Tacuba, Circo, El Gran Silencio, Aterciopelados, Gustavo Santaolalla, and many others in the Latin alternative scene. The Valenzuela family spoke only English at home, and he knew very little Spanish. Valens learned the lyrics phonetically to record "La Bamba" in Spanish. In 2019, the Valens version of "La Bamba" was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".
Valens was nominated for a Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1988 for La Bamba.
In 2015, Billboard magazine listed Valens on its list of the 30 most influential Latino artists in history, citing "the influence of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer lives on in today's Latin alternative artists" and also citing "the pioneering Latino artists's enduring crossover hit "La Bamba" proved early on that Mexican-rooted music and Spanish lyrics appealed to the mainstream".
"Come On, Let's Go" has been recorded by Los Lobos, the Ramones and the Paley Brothers, Tommy Steele, the Huntingtons, Girl in a Coma, and the McCoys. Johnny Rebb and his Rebels recorded the song for Leedon/Canetoad Records in Australia. "Donna" has been recorded by artists as diverse as MxPx, Marty Wilde, the Youngbloods, Clem Snide, Cappadonna, and Misfits.
Robert Quine has cited Valens's guitar playing as an early influence on his style. Valens also inspired Jimi Hendrix, Chan Romero, Carlos Santana, the Beatles, Chris Montez, Keith O'Conner Murphy, the Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin, among others.
Valens's mother, Concha, who died in 1987, is buried alongside him.