Ritchie Valens’ high school sweetheart still vividly remembers the moment in the fall of 1958 when she first heard the ballad “Donna” that Valens had written for her. Donna Fox (then Donna Ludwig) was ...

Back in 1959, singer/songwriter Ritchie Valens just missed hitting No. 1 on the pop charts with ”Donna,” a song that rose to No. 2 shortly after Valens was killed in a plane crash along with Buddy ...

This essay is adapted from Merrick Morton's "La Bamba: A Visual History," published by Hat & Beard Press. “Dance!! Dance!! Dance!! to the music of the Silhouettes Band!!” read the handbill. The ...

He’s most famous for writing “La Bamba,” a rock and roll classic adapted from a Mexican folk song, that became a modest hit in 1958, and a hit again in 1987 when Los Lobos recorded it for La Bamba, a ...

The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner has shared a cover of Ritchie Valens’ 1950s classic “Donna,” which he recorded as a way to make up for a festival set in Mexico that the duo had to cancel recently.

Ritchie Valens‘ concert at Pomona’s Rainbow Gardens was so exciting a prospect, a young Frank Zappa was desperate to go. The teenager, then living with his parents in Claremont and a fan of Valens’ ...

When Connie Valens Anderson, sister of of late rock ‘n’ roll icon Ritchie Valens, learned that a stretch of the 5 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley was being named after her brother, she couldn’t ...

Pacoima’s favorite son and America’s first Latino rock star, died in the Iowa plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and J.P. (“the Big Bopper”) Richardson. Valens was 17. He made his first records ...