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Richard Stev Valzuela (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959), better known by his stage name Ritchie Vals, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movemt, Vals was killed in a plane crash just eight months into his music career.
Vals had several hits, most notably La Bamba, which he had adapted from a Mexican folk song. Vals transformed the song into one with a rock rhythm and beat, and it became a hit in 1958,
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On February 3, 1959, on what has become known as The Day the Music Died, Vals died in a plane crash in Iowa, an accidt that also claimed the lives of fellow musicians Buddy Holly and J. P. The Big Bopper Richardson, as well as pilot Roger Peterson. Vals 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.
Vals was born as Richard Stev Valzuela in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. The son of Joseph Stev Valzuela (1896–1952) and Concepción Concha Reyes (1915–1987), he had two half-brothers, Roberto Bob Morales (1937–2018) and Mario Ramirez, and two younger sisters, Connie and Irma.
R&B, and jump blues. He expressed an interest in making music of his own by the age of five. Valzuela was couraged by his father to take up guitar and trumpet, and later taught himself the drums. Though Valzuela was left-handed, he was so eager to learn the guitar that he mastered the traditional right-handed version of the instrumt.
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Valzuela was a 15-year-old studt 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 attding his grandfather's funeral.
By the time Valzuela was attding Pacoima Junior High School (now Pacoima Middle School), he would bring his guitar to school and sing and play songs to his frids on the bleachers.
Wh Valzuela was 16 years old, he was invited to join a local band, The Silhouettes (not to be confused with the group of the same name famous for its hit song Get a Job). Valzuela began as a guitarist, and wh the main vocalist left the group, he assumed the position. On October 19, 1957, Valzuela made his performing debut with The Silhouettes.
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A self-taught musician, Valzuela was an accomplished singer and guitarist. At his appearances, Valzuela oft improvised new lyrics and added new riffs to popular songs while he was playing.
Bob Keane, the owner and presidt of small record label Del-Fi Records in Hollywood, was giv a tip in May 1958 by San Fernando High School studt Doug Macchia about a young performer from Pacoima by the name of Richard Valzuela. Kids knew the performer as the Little Richard of San Fernando. Swayed by the Little Richard comparison, Keane wt to see Valzuela play a Saturday-morning matinée at a movie theater in San Fernando. Impressed by the performance, he invited Valzuela to audition at his home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, where he had a small recording studio in his basemt. His recording equipmt comprised an early stereo recorder (a two-track Ampex 601-2 portable) and a pair of Neumann U-47 condser microphones. After this first audition, Keane signed Valzuela to Del-Fi on May 27, 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 differt. Similarly, Keane recommded shorting his surname to Vals from Valzuela to wid his appeal beyond any obvious ethnic group.
Vals was ready to ter the studio with a full band backing him. The musicians included Ré Hall, Carol Kaye, and Earl Palmer. The first songs recorded at Gold Star Studios, at a single studio session one afternoon in July 1958, were Come On, Let's Go, an original, credited to Vals/Kuhn (Keane's real name), and Framed, a Leiber and Stoller tune. Pressed and released within days of the recording session, the record was a success. Vals' next record, a double A-side, the final record to be released in his lifetime, had the song Donna (writt about a real girlfrid Donna Ludwig
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) 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 Vals's career forced him to drop out of high school. Keane booked appearances at vues across the United States and performances on television programs.
On October 6, 1958, Vals made his first appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand singing “Come On, Let’s Go”. Soon after, Vals traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii to perform under the banner of the “11th Show of Stars”.
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After his trip to Honolulu, Vals made an appearance at Pacoima Junior High School (Now Pacoima Middle School) where he had graduated just a few years earlier. This concert would later be released as an album, consisting of Vals' only live performance ever recorded. It may possibly be the first live rock album. Mid-December found Vals departing to New York. Keane had managed to book him as a late addition to “Alan Freed’s Christmas Jubilee Show” where Vals would be performing with The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Eddie Cochran and others.
The new year would bring Vals home, but not before he played various auditoriums 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 studt organized fundraiser called the “The Te Cante Foundation”.
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Vals was in a relationship with Donna Ludwig, his high school sweetheart, from 1957 until his death. Ludwig's parts disapproved of her dating a Hispanic man. Vals's song Donna was writt for her. Their relationship became strained due to Vals's 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 Vals.
After the February 2, 1959, performance in Clear Lake, Iowa (which ded around midnight), Holly, Richardson, and Vals flew out of the Mason City airport in a small plane that Holly had chartered. Vals was on the plane since he won a coin toss with Holly's backup guitarist Tommy Allsup. Holly's bassist, Waylon Jnings, 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-passger Beechcraft Bonanza, (N3794N), departed for Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed a few minutes after takeoff for reasons still unknown. The crash killed all three passgers and pilot Roger Peterson instantly upon impact. As with Holly and Richardson, Vals suffered massive and unsurvivable head injuries along with blunt-force trauma to the chest. At the age of 17, Vals was the youngest to die in the crash.
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The tragedy inspired singer Don McLean to write his 1971 hit American Pie, immortalizing February 3 as The Day the Music Died. Vals's remains were buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California.
Vals was a pioneer of Chicano rock and Latin rock, inspiring many musicians of Mexican heritage. He influced the likes of Los Lobos, Los Lonely Boys, and Carlos Santana, as Vals had become nationally successful at a time wh 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 influtial recording, not only by becoming a pop chart hit sung tirely in Spanish, but also because of its successful blding of traditional Latin American music with rock. Vals was the first to capitalize on this formula, which was later adopted by such varied artists as Sela, Caifanes, Café Tacuba, Circo, El Gran Silcio, Aterciopelados, Gustavo Santaolalla, and many others in the Latin alternative sce. Ironically, the Valzuela family spoke only glish at home, and he knew very little Spanish.
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Vals learned the lyrics phonetically to record La Bamba in Spanish. In 2019, the Vals 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.
In 2015, Billboard listed Vals on its list of the 30 most influtial Latino artists in history, citing “the influce of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer lives on in today’s Latin alternative artists” and also citing “the pioneering Latino artists’s during crossover hit “La Bamba” proved early on that Mexican-rooted music and Spanish lyrics appealed to the mainstream”.
Come On,
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