If someone speaks of Ritchie Valens in the international musical industry, very many people usually ask the question “who was Ritchie Valens”. Ritchie Valens was Mexican American songwriter, guitarist and singer, who was born on May 13th 1941, in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. Ritchie Valens was brought up in an environment that constituted of traditional Mexican music, RNB and the jump blues; due to this environment, Ritchie Valens portrayed an interest in music from the age of 5 and started his journey in the world of music: he learned the drums, guitar and trumpet which lead to his joining of The Silhouettes band as its guitarist and main vocalist. Due to his immaculate skills, Ritchie Valens signed a contract with Bob Keane; the owner of Del-Fi Records in May, 1958 thus began the recording and demoing of the best songs that Ritchie Valens sang and the production of Ritchie Valens’ albums. Some of the songs featured in his albums include “Come on Lets go”, “Donna”, “That’s my Little Suzie”, “Little Girl”, “Stay beside me”, “La Bamba” amongst other songs.
One of the most remembered song sung by Ritchie Valens is “La Bamba”, which was a hit in 1958 up to today. “La Bamba” proved to be Ritchie Valens best recording with a successful blend between rock and Latin American music thus making this song one of the best pop chart songs sung entirely in Spanish. Ritchie Valens unfortunately died at a young age of 17 in 1959 in Iowa in a plane crash that killed him and two other musicians namely Richardson and Holly. Although his death lead to an end of his musical career in eight months, Ritchie Valens left a legacy and became an inspiration to Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Los Lonely Boys, Chan Romero, Chris Montez amongst other musicians. So if anyone asks who was Ritchie Valens, just answer that he is the father of “La Bamba” and they will understand.