I have written of Ritchie Valens already; he was the first Hispanic rock star and grew up in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima. Despite his Anglicized name (his birth name was Ricardo Esteban Valenzuela Reyes), Valens was proud of his heritage and was expressing an interest in making music at the age of 5. He taught himself to play guitar and, at 16, was hired by a local band called the Silhouettes (not the same as the doo-wop group the Silhouettes); he became the frontman when the lead singer moved on. The Silhouettes had a remarkable diversity among its membership, including African-American and Japanese-American members; he shared vocalist duties with two women. Under the name Richard Valenzuela, he was becoming known as the “Little Richard of San Fernando”.
Ritchie Valens was signed by producer Bob Keane to Del-Fi Records in 1958 after he saw one of the Silhouettes shows; it was Keane who suggested that he shorten his last name and add the “t” to his first. Bob Keane recalls of that night: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw Ritchie. He had a small, somewhat beat-up guitar amp worth about fifty bucks. He stood up there on stage, with complete command of his audience. He was this bull-like kid with an opera tenor’s torso. I knew he had a lot of potential. It should go without saying that what I heard impressed me, but I had no idea what to do with the raw talent I saw up there on the stage.”
(June 2013/1)
