Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
RITCHIE VALENS
The nervous smile gives it away… but it’s still easy to forget just how young Ritchie Valens was. In the Autumn of 1958, then just 17, Richard Steven Valenzuela left San Fernando High School in LA early to meet demands for live shows and prep a debut album – his songs La Bamba and Donna were fast climbing the charts. Just months earlier, Valenzuela was known only to the Spanishspeaking LA community, informally known as ‘the Little Richard Of San Fernando’, though the Valenzuela family spoke only English at home – Valens had reworked the traditional Mexican folk song La Bamba by learning Spanish phonetically. This photo, from the second half of 1958, was from the same session that would later grace his debut album of March 1959, which he never got to see released. Valens died in the same plane crash that claimed Buddy Holly, in February 1959. Valenzuela’s youth hits home when you consider his third, posthumously-released album: Ritchie Valens In Concert At Pacoima Jr High. His career was so brief, even school shows were a goldmine.