Ritchie Valens and a White Boy from Indiana
I haven’t visited many famous people’s graves, at least on purpose. I passed by Johnny Ramone’s final resting place on our way to see E.T. at Hollywood Forever, but the only graves I can recall making a trip to see number only four: Ernest Hemmingway, James Dean, Doc Holliday and Ritchie Valens. Ritchie is buried at the San Fernando Mission, not far from where he grew up in Pacoima.
I can’t remember how I first was introduced to his music, but it was most likely 1987’s La Bamba, starring Lou Diamond Phillips. I still love the movie and my daughter and I both cry at the end as Santo and Johnny’s “Sleepwalk” plays during the funeral procession. That’s another brilliant song for another blog post, but it’ll forever be etched in my memory as accompanying that scene.
His career was incredibly short and he was just a kid, but his shadow still looms large over rock music, especially in Chicano music. As La Bamba pointed out, he couldn’t speak Spanish, but he was a kid in the San Fernando Valley of Mexican descent. If not for him, the likelihood of guys like Tito Larriva and Los Lobos doing what they did looks a lot different.
Maybe it was their eternal youth that was part of the appeal for me as a kid, but Ritchie and Buddy Holly were always a part of my musical palate. I’ve been playing “We Belong Together” and “Maybe Baby” in band rehearsals as far back as the mid-90s. Even now, those songs are magical. Especially, driving alone somewhere, they just give you that brief reminder of a simpler time when all I had to worry about was gas in the tank, Lucky Strikes in my pocket and getting to Blockbuster before my shift started.
It’s this kind of feeling that has the power to bring people together. In early 2002, I hadn’t been in Los Angeles that long. I think I was still sleeping on the floor of this apartment in Glendale with these three kids who had more drama than a soap opera. I had met my friend Francisco “Frank” Espinosa (who I would later move in with in Boyle Heights) at our crappy job at 7th and Figueroa in downtown L.A. and we’d bonded over music.
Some Friday or Saturday night, Frank invited me to go to a party with him in Highland Park. His friend’s band was playing at a house party. We go, grab a beer and before the band starts I notice a gigantic old photo of a guy who looks like a Mexican Roy Orbison on the wall. I just remember thinking, “I bet that dude was pretty cool.” The band starts and, especially in the Chicano music scene, they were fitting at the time – a mix of the Smiths, Joy Division and the Strokes. They were pretty good.
After they did their set, they invited anyone who could play to come up and jam. I stepped in on guitar and I remember doing “Boys Don’t Cry” and maybe “How Soon is Now?” before they asked me to sing one. Being young and naïve, not thinking about the fact I was the only white dude there (and it was a different time when we didn’t think so much about such things), I kicked into “We Belong Together” and the kids in the band were stoked about it. They asked me if I knew any other Chicano rock and I kicked into “La Bamba”. After that, I told them I was tapped out. I loved Los Lobos, The Plugz, Tito & Tarrantula, but I couldn’t speak Spanish so I didn’t learn most of the songs. I handed the guitar to someone else and when I stepped off, I saw an older guy smiling ear to ear waiting for me. It was the dude in the picture.
“Where did a white boy learn those Chicago songs?”
“I watched La Bamba and I fell in love with Ritchie, Los Lobos and Tito Larriva.”
We talked for about an hour about Chicano music and how a white kid from Indiana fell in love with it. He just couldn’t believe I loved all this Chicano rock and mariachi. I told him I didn’t know why I responded to it the way I did, but I just loved it. I never saw the guy again, but that moment has stuck with me ever since.
I ended up moving in with Frank and spending about two years in Boyle Heights learning to make friends and to non-verbally communicate with folks who didn’t speak my language, or I theirs. I got invited to barbecues, quinceneras and family get togethers. The women in my apartment complex made sure I ate well (I think they worried about me!). Sadly, I don’t think I’d be welcomed back in Boyle Heights today, but I will always cherish my time there and the culture that I was welcomed into.
Ritchie was seventeen when he died, but he did so much while he was here.