RITCHIE VALENS Donna/La Bamba 78 MEGA-RARE

	£		112
	$		148

Ritchie Valens-Donna/La Bamba

Very, very rare 1958 London 78rpm HL.8803

in VERY GOOD++ Condition 

with original sleeve in EXCELLENT- condition

A very nice copy. The record displays very light surface wear and absolutely no serious problems. No chips, no cracks and excellent sound quality. Labels excellent.  This is a great copy of a VERY RARE record. It seldom appears for sale, especially in this condition.

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I am currently listing a superb collection of 78s, including one by the Johnny Burnette Trio, 3 x Eddie Cochran 78s, 1 x Roy Hall, 1 x Ritchie Valens, and 25 of the 28 Elvis 78s, all in exceptional condition. An amazing collection, so keep an eye on my listings over the coming week!

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Ritchie Valens was rock-and-roll's first Chicano star, and managed to come up with some classic hit songs and leave his mark before his tragic death at the age of 17.

Richie Valenzuela was born in 1941 in Pacoima, California, an area north of Los Angeles where he lived his entire life. He learned to play guitar and joined a group in high school, then met with Del-Fi record producer Bob Keane. He recorded Come On, Let's Go and it almost made the top forty in 1958. Keane had recording equipment that was not really state-of-the-art, and the equipment used by Valens in his brief career was not top notch, resulting in a sound that is somewhat muddy but remains, nevertheless, as excellent vintage rock-and-roll. He wrote a song for a schoolgirl sweetheart, Donna which was a smash natiowide hit and earned Ritchie an appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

The flip side of Donna was his re-arrangement of an old standard from south of the border, La Bamba. It became a top forty song itself and was the most influential song he ever recorded. Valens recorded a number of other songs for Bob Keane, including Little Girl and That's My Little Susie, which made the top one hundred.

In December, Ritchie appeared at his junior high school for an afternoon assembly in the gym which Keane taped. At this time Valens filmed a cameo for "Go, Johnny Go!" a teen movie. He appeared on "The Dick Clark Show" on December 27. On January 23, 1959, Valens joined Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Dion and the Belmonts for the "Winter Dance Party" tour of the Upper Midwest. On February 2, 1959, the "Winter Dance Party" arrived in Clear Lake Iowa, to play a dance at the Surf Ball Room. the heater on the converted bus that he had been traveling on hadn't been working properly for days while the outside temperatures were near zero. On the way to Clear Lake the bus broke down completely. Buddy Holly who was unhappy with the traveling plans, arranged to fly to the next stop in a leased airplane. He hired a four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza for himself and the band members, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. The Big Bopper and Valens talked Jennings and Allsup out of their seats. After the show Holly, Richardson and Valens went to the airport and took off shortly after midnight for Fargo, North Dakota. The plane took off and shortly thereafter crashed into a pasture a mile from the airport. All aboard were killed. Ritchie Valens was buried February 7, in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery.

Both Donna and La Bamba were still on the charts at the time of his death. Valens undoubtedly would have contributed a great deal to pop music had he lived.

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