Totally Wired: Post-punk Interviews and Overviews Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip' Hop Born in London, Reynolds now lives in Los Angeles.īlissed Out: The Raptures of Rock The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' RollĮnergy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 Bring the Noise: While playing at a local movie theater in 1958, he was discovered by producer Bob Keane, who signed Valens to his Del-Fi label and convinced him to shorten his surname to "Valens," claiming the abbreviated version had broader appeal than "Valenzuela." Under Keane's wing, Valens entered a Los Angeles recording studio in July and emerged with "Come on Let's Go," which climbed to number 42 on the national charts.Publications. Valens eventually became the band's frontman. Valens' musical influences were diverse, running the gamut from Little Richard and rockabilly to traditional Mexican genres like mariachi, and his talent on the guitar earned him a spot in a local band, the Silhouettes, when he was 16. He played several instruments as a child and eventually devoted most of his focus to the guitar, learning a right-hand version of the guitar despite his own left-handedness. Ricardo Esteban Valenzuela Reyes was raised in a Mexican-American household in the San Fernando Valley. Nevertheless, Valens' music has endured for decades. At the time, Valens had only recently established himself as one of the most promising young talents in rock & roll, just barely missing the top of the charts with "Donna," a number two hit, and pioneering a blend of rock and Latin music with the single's almost equally popular flip side, "La Bamba." Like many rock stars who died prematurely, it's difficult to assess his unrealized potential he was only 17 at the time of his death, and had just barely begun to make records. The first Hispanic rock star, Ritchie Valens will forever be known as one of the two musicians (along with the Big Bopper) who perished with Buddy Holly in 1959, when their private plane crashed in the midst of a Midwest tour.
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