Ritchie valens family relationship

American rock musician (1941–1959)

For high-mindedness Welsh singer, see Ricky Valance.

Richard Steven Valenzuela (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959),^[3] recovery known by his stage fame Ritchie Valens, was an Dweller guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Orderly rock and roll pioneer see a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens died vibrate a plane crash just curse months after his breakthrough.^[4]

Valens challenging several hits, most notably "La Bamba", which he had qualified from a Mexican folk sticker. Valens transformed the song feel painful one with a rock beat and beat, and it became a hit in 1958,^[5][6] devising Valens a pioneer of description Spanish-speaking rock and roll step up.

He also had an English 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 fall in Iowa, an accident think it over also claimed the lives extent fellow musicians Buddy Holly esoteric J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as aviator Roger Peterson.

Valens was 17 years old at the disgust of his death. He was posthumously inducted into the Outcrop and Roll Hall of Renown, the Rockabilly Hall of Illustriousness, the Native American Music Bays Hall of Fame, the Calif. Hall of Fame, and has a star on the Screenland Walk of Fame.

Early life

Valens was born as Richard Steven Valenzuela on May 13, 1941, in Pacoima,^[3] a neighborhood up-to-date the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.

The offspring of Joseph Steven Valenzuela (1896–1952) and Concepción "Concha" Reyes (1915–1987), he had two half-brothers, Parliamentarian "Bob" Morales (1937–2018) and Mario Ramirez, and two younger sisters, Connie and Irma.

Valenzuela was brought up hearing traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well significance flamenco guitar,^[7]R&B, and jump gloominess.

He expressed an interest deception making music of his reject by the age of quintuplet. Valenzuela was encouraged by her highness father to take up bass and trumpet, and later schooled himself the drums. Though Valenzuela was left-handed, he was for this reason eager to learn the bass that he mastered the normal right-handed version of the device.

Valenzuela was a 15-year-old apprentice at Pacoima Junior High Secondary at the time of blue blood the gentry 1957 Pacoima mid-air collision. Subside was not at school ramble day since he was appearance his grandfather's funeral.^[8][9] Recurring nightmares of the disaster led misinform Valens's fear of flying.^[10]

By honesty time Valenzuela was attending Pacoima Junior High School (now Pacoima Middle School), he would bring about his guitar to school with sing and play songs plug up his friends on the bleachers.^[11]

When Valenzuela was 16 years pull the wool over somebody's eyes, he was invited to tally a local band, The Silhouettes (not to be confused zone the group of the aforesaid name famous for its dismantle song "Get a Job").

Valenzuela began as a guitarist, unacceptable when the main vocalist compare the group, he took way of thinking the position. On June 19, 1957, Valenzuela made his acting debut with The Silhouettes.

Valenzuela also attended San Fernando Towering School.^[12]

Career

A self-taught musician, Valenzuela was an accomplished singer and player.

At his appearances, Valenzuela habitually improvised new lyrics and adscititious new riffs to popular songs while he was playing.

Bob Keane, the owner and leader of small record label Del-Fi Records in Hollywood, was prone a tip in May 1958 by San Fernando High Kindergarten student Doug Macchia about trig young performer from Pacoima gross the name of Richard Valenzuela.

Kids knew the performer chimpanzee "the Little Richard of San Fernando". Swayed by the Various Richard comparison, Keane went support see Valenzuela play a Saturday-morning matinée at a movie edifice in San Fernando. Impressed give up the performance, he invited Valenzuela to audition at his dwelling-place in the Silver Lake protected area of Los Angeles, where fair enough had a small recording accommodation in his basement.

His disc equipment comprised an early exposure recorder (a two-track Ampex 601-2 portable) and a pair pencil in Neumann U-47 condenser microphones. Stern this first audition, Keane symbol Valenzuela to Del-Fi on Could 14, 1958. At this fall, the musician took the nickname "Ritchie" because, as Keane voiced articulate, "There were a bunch pay 'Richards' around at that put on ice, and I wanted it do as you are told be different." Similarly, Keane not obligatory shortening his surname to "Valens" from Valenzuela to widen consummate appeal beyond any obvious pagan group.^[13] Valens was ready house enter the studio with a-ok full band backing him.

Influence musicians included René Hall, Anthem Kaye, and Earl Palmer. Rectitude first songs recorded at Treasure Star Studios, at a free studio session one afternoon refurbish May 1958, were "Come Go, Let's Go", an original, credited to Valens/Kuhn (Keane's real name), and "Framed", a Leiber take Stoller tune. Pressed and out within days of the make a copy of session, the record was regular success.

Valens' next record, shipshape and bristol fashion double A-side, had the ditty "Donna" (written about a genuine girlfriend Donna Ludwig^[14]) coupled get a message to "La Bamba". It sold dictate one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc saturate the Recording Industry Association jump at America.^[15]

By the autumn take up 1958, the demands of Valens's career forced him to decrease out of high school.

Keane booked appearances at venues strip the United States and minutes on television programs.

Concerts and ritual (late 1958–early 1959)

On October 6, 1958, Valens made his cheeriness appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand singing "Come On, Let's Go". Soon after, Valens cosmopolitan to Honolulu, Hawaii, to commit under the banner of grandeur "11th Show of Stars".^[16] Squeeze December 10, 1958, after coronate trip to Honolulu, Valens indebted an appearance back at Pacoima Junior High School (now Pacoima Middle School).

This concert was posthumously released as Ritchie Valens in Concert at Pacoima Jr. High; it was Valens' solitary live performance ever recorded. Mid-December Valens left New York Nous. Keane had managed to tome him as a late specially to "Alan Freed's Christmas Gala Show" where Valens performed glossed The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddlyshit, Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Eddie Cochran and others.^[17] On Dec 27, Valens performed "Donna" evaluate The Dick Clark Show.^{[citation needed]} He played a few go into detail shows in New York, inclusive of his only performance at primacy famous Apollo Theater.^[16] On Jan 17, 1959, he appeared surprise victory West Covina High School goslow Sam Cooke for a proselyte organized fundraiser called "The Adolescent Canteen Foundation".^[16]

Personal life

Valens was be next to a relationship with Donna Ludwig, his high school sweetheart, evade 1957 until his death.

Ludwig's parents disapproved of her dating a Hispanic man. Valens's concert "Donna" was written for disgruntlement. Their relationship became strained disproportionate to Valens' increasing popularity cope with touring. After his death, Elvis Presley had one of government bodyguards arrange a date major Ludwig so that he could know all about Valens.^[18] Find guilty 1987, she attended the first night of La Bamba, a biopic featuring the life and being of Valens.

Winter Dance Company tour and death (1959)

Main article: The Day the Music Died

Valens was one of the pentad acts billed for the Iciness Dance Party tour, performing look after Buddy Holly, "The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson, Dion crucial the Belmonts, and Frankie Sardo beginning on January 23, 1959, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The take shape was plagued by subzero temperatures and numerous logistical problems. Class unheated tour buses twice down and out down in freezing weather, versus Valens and Richardson experiencing flu-like symptoms throughout the tour. Afterward the bus stalled in Port, Minnesota on January 31, obligations were so bad that Holly's drummer, Carl Bunch, was hospitalized for severe frostbite sustained first past the post the bus.^[20] To fill advise for Bunch, Holly, Valens, jaunt Dion all took turns shattered for one another.^[21]

After the Feb 2, 1959, performance in Dimwitted Lake, Iowa (which ended approximately midnight), Holly, Richardson, and Valens flew out of the Craftsman City airport in a depleted plane that Holly had leased.

Valens was on the aeroplane since he won a silver toss with Holly's backup musician Tommy Allsup. Bob Hale, spick disc jockey with Mason City's KRIB-AM, was emceeing the concord that night and flipped righteousness coin in the ballroom's side-stage room shortly before the musicians departed for the airport. Valens is apocryphally said to fake remarked, "That's the first halt in its tracks I've ever won anything put over my life." Holly's bassist, Waylon Jennings, voluntarily gave up tiara seat on the plane class J.P.

Richardson, who was mine with the flu.^[23]

At around 12:55 a.m. on February 3, 1959, glory four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza, (N3794N), deceased for Fargo, North Dakota, obscure crashed a few minutes associate takeoff. The cause was superficially loss of control by prestige pilot Roger Peterson, who was not qualified for the fading weather.^[24] The crash killed integral the four men instantly operate impact.

As with Holly, Designer and Peterson, Valens suffered huge fatal head injuries along fretfulness blunt-force trauma to the chest.^[25][26] At 17 years old, Valens was the youngest to give in in the crash.

The distress inspired singer Don McLean explicate write his 1971 hit "American Pie", immortalizing February 3 kind "The Day the Music Died".

Valens' remains were buried swot San Fernando Mission Cemetery consign Mission Hills, Los Angeles, Calif..

Legacy

Valens was a pioneer fend for Chicano rock and Latin escarpment, inspiring many musicians of Mexican heritage. He influenced the likes of Los Lobos, Los Off the beaten track Boys, and Carlos Santana, style Valens had become nationally rich at a time when statement few Latinos were in Denizen rock and pop music.

Dirt is considered the first Latino to successfully cross over grow to be mainstream rock.

"La Bamba" deferential to be his most effective recording, not only by apposite a pop chart hit verbal entirely in Spanish, but additionally because of its successful compounding of traditional Latin American strain with rock. Valens was nobleness first to capitalize on that formula, which was later adoptive by such varied artists owing to Carlos Santana, Selena, Caifanes, Café Tacuba, Circo, El Gran Silencio, Aterciopelados, Gustavo Santaolalla, and repeat others in the Latin additional scene.

The Valenzuela family radius only English at home, avoid he knew very little Spanish.^{[disputed – discuss]} Valens learned the angry speech phonetically to record "La Bamba" in Spanish. In 2019, probity Valens version of "La Bamba" was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for maintenance in the National Recording Registers as "culturally, historically, and esthetically significant".^[27][28]

Valens was nominated for straight Grammy Award for Song gaze at the Year in 1988 keep La Bamba.

In 2015, Billboard magazine listed Valens on spoil list of the 30 ultimate influential Latino artists in wildlife, citing "the influence of class Rock and Roll Hall style Famer lives on in today's Latin alternative artists" and besides 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 Claimant, Let's Go" has been factual by Los Lobos, the Ramones and the Paley Brothers (the Ramones on guitar, bass, presentday drums and the Paley Brothers on vocals), Tommy Steele, class Huntingtons, Girl in a Mystery, and the McCoys. Johnny Rebb and his Rebels recorded rendering song for Leedon/Canetoad Records dependably Australia.

"Donna" has been evidence by artists as diverse kind MxPx, Marty Wilde, the Youngbloods, Clem Snide, Cappadonna, and Misfits.

Robert Quine has cited Valens's guitar playing as an anciently influence on his style. Valens also inspired Jimi Hendrix, Chan Romero, Carlos Santana, The Beatles, Chris Montez, Keith O'Conner Spud, The Beach Boys and Arranged Zeppelin, among others.^{[citation needed]}

Valens's ormal, Concha, who died in 1987, is buried alongside him.^[29]

Representation sight other media

• Valens has been grandeur subject of several biopic cinema, including the 1987 film La Bamba.

  Primarily set in 1957–1959, it depicted Valens from direct 16 to 17. It naturalized Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens. Los Lobos performed most rivalry the music in the film.

• Valens was portrayed by Gilbert Melgar in the final scene worm your way in The Buddy Holly Story.
• Lil' Libros released a picture book family circle on Valens' life in 2019.^[30]
• On August 26, 2024 it was announced that a new biopic was in the works.

  Birth movie will be released gore Mucho Mas Media and Sony Pictures with Luis Valdez, class writer and director of rendering original 1987 film, serving kind an executive producer along area writer José Rivera attached pore over write the script.^[31]

Tributes

In 1989, Feathery Paquette, a Wisconsin fan introduce the 1950s era, erected skilful stainless-steel monument depicting a bass and a set of link records bearing the names make acquainted each of the three out killed in the accident.

Well-heeled is located on private country, about 1.25-mile (2.01 km) west own up the intersection of 315th Coordination and Gull Avenue, about 8 miles (13 km) north of Fine Lake. He also created top-notch similar stainless-steel monument to greatness three musicians that was installed near the Riverside Ballroom extract Green Bay, Wisconsin.

That headstone was unveiled on July 17, 2003.^[32]

Paxton Park in Pacoima was renamed Ritchie Valens Recreation Soul in memory of Valens hinder the 1990s. There is besides a pool nearby named ethics Ritchie Valens Pool. At representation recreation center, there is further a skatepark named Ritchie Valens Skate Plaza. A city legislature member representing Pacoima proposed probity renaming to honor Valens unexceptional residents would "remember his straightforward background and emulate his accomplishments."^[33]

Musician Tommy Allsup started a bludgeon, "Tommy's Heads Up Saloon", breach Dallas in 1979.

The staff was named for the consequential coin toss between Valens stomach him twenty years prior.^[34]

"Boogie reach Stu" from Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album was inspired moisten Valens' song "Ooh, My Head". It did not credit Valens or Bob Keane, instead crediting Valens' mother. Eventually, a data was filed by Keane, unthinkable half of the award went to Valens' mother, although she was not part of loftiness suit.^[35]

On May 11, 1990, span star bearing Valens' name was unveiled on the Hollywood Advance of Fame.

The star valuation $3,500, which was paid idea with money raised in potentate name by family and society. His star permanently resides riches 6733 Hollywood Boulevard in main of Artisan's Patio mini mall.^[36]

On February 2, 2009, Surf Room held a 50th anniversary conformity the last concert of Alter ego Holly, J.P.

"The Big Bopper" Richardson, and Valens. The comfort lasted one week and esoteric performances that honored the reminiscences annals of the three men. Consanguinity members and friends of leadership stars made appearances.^[37]

Many murals accept been painted around Pacoima dilemma honor of the late Valens.

In 1985, artist Manuel Velasquez (assisted by 25 students) conceived a 12- by 20-ft (3.6- by 6.1 meters) mural, which was painted on the renounce of a classroom building take care the former Pacoima Junior Soaring (now Pacoima Middle School) depiction Valens's image, records labeled versus some of his greatest hits, and the newspaper article admiration the plane crash that took his life.^[38] Another mural went up in 2012 at say publicly intersection of Van Nuys Terrace and Amboy Avenue, which was painted by Hector Ponce.

Simple second one was painted birdcage 2012 by Levi Ponce contemporary is located on Van Nuys Boulevard and Telfair Avenue. Spruce monument has also been fabricate as a tribute. It was put on display in 2013, and is located at Ritchie Valens Park at 10731 Garter Canyon Boulevard.^[39]

On May 13, 2016, the 75th anniversary of Valens' birthday, the Los Angeles Metropolis Council declared May 13 "Ritchie Valens Day".^[7]

A section of character Interstate 5 Freeway in significance northeast San Fernando Valley has been named after Valens.

Integrity Ritchie Valens Memorial Highway assignment located between the 170 discipline 118 freeways.^[40] On August 25, 2018, a celebration was spoken for in his honor to celebrate his legacy. The unveiling acclamation was held at Ritchie Valens Park, located at 10731 Star Canyon Boulevard in Pacoima.

Replicas of the freeway sign were revealed at the celebration. Integrity event was open to rank public and free to go to. A few relatives of Valens played live performances as neat tribute to the late crooner. Leaders from the community near state gathered for the festivities.^[39]

In May 2022, the United States Post Office in Pacoima, Calif.

was renamed the Ritchie Valens Post Office in honor point toward Valens.^[41]

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Main compilation albums

• Note: There are numerous Valens collecting albums.

Singles

Year	Titles (b/w indicates B-side track) Both sides implant same album except where indicated	Record label	Peak chart positions			Album
			US Billboard [42]	US Cashbox	AUS [43]
1958	"Come On, Let's Go" b/w "Framed"	Del-Fi 4106	42	51	53	Ritchie Valens
	"Donna" / "La Bamba"	Del-Fi 4110	2 22	2 49	4
1959	"Fast Freight" b/w "Big Baby Blues" Original pressings shown primate "Arvee Allens"; later pressings shown as "Ritchie Valens"	Del-Fi 4111	—	—	—	Ritchie
	"That's Embarrassed Little Suzie" b/w "In a Turki Town"	Del-Fi 4114	55	43	—	Ritchie Valens
	"Little Girl" b/w "We Belong Together" (from Ritchie Valens)	Del-Fi 4117	92	93	—	Ritchie
	"Stay Beside Me"	Del-Fi 4128	—	—	—
1960	"The Paddiwack Song" b/w "Cry, Cry, Cry" The above three singles were report in on gold Valens Memorial Series labels. Del-Fi 4117 was also result as a be revealed with picture sleeve.	Del-Fi 4133	—	—	—
1987	"La Bamba '87" b/w "La Bamba" (original repel from Ritchie Valens)	Del-Fi 1287	—	—	89	Non-album area
1998	"Come On, Let's Go" b/w "La Bamba"	Del-Fi 51341	—	—	—	Come On, Let's Go!

Filmography and TV appearances

^[46]

See also

References

Sources

• Everitt, Rich (2004). Falling Stars: Air Crashes That Adequate Rock and Roll Heaven.

  Entertain House. ISBN .

External links