The L.A. Musical History Tour
Ritchie Valens grave
San Fernando Mission Cemetery, San Fernando
Ritchie Valens's career was a comet across the sky of Los Angeles. That
a local teenager
could leap into the same league as Elvis in 1958 was something most L.A.
kids never
imagined; but for a Chicano kid to make it, with a song sung in Spanish
("La Bamba") --
well, the impact on the Mexican-American community was immeasurable.
Its grief was especially great, then, when that same young hero died suddenly
in a plane
crash after less than a year of stardom. A whole generation of Latinos grew
up feeling the
void left by Ritchie's death.