Latin rocker’s legend revived

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 24

Latin rocker’s legend revived

The film, ‘La Bamba,’ has brought Ritchie Valens to life for a new generation

By

PAUL FREEMAN

Most of us know Ritchie Valens only as the teen-age performer who died with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in a 1959 plane crash. He is just a name in the record store’s oldies section.

But the writer-director, Luis Valdez, hopes to bring the Latin rocker to life for a new generation with his film "La Bamba,” a movie musical that reveals Valens’s roots, talent and spirit in dramatic fashion. Bom Richard Valenzuela, the singer burst out of the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles with a trio of distinctive hits: “Come on Let’s Go,” “Donna” and “La Bamba.”

And, though he was just 17 when he was killed, Valdez believes Valens’s music has influenced countless rock performers, including Carlos Santana, who, along with Miles Goodman, wrote the movie’s score, and Los Lobos, who Valdez chose to perform Valen’s music.

New approach

“In the final stage of Ritchie’s very short life, he was working on a new approach that, in a way, anticipated Carlos Santana’s contributions in the Afro-Cuban rock area,” Valdez said in a recent interview to promote “La Bamba.”

“Many of Ritchie’s unfinished songs show that he was into cultural fusion, mixing elements of rock, jazz and Spanish music. You listen to it and go, ‘My God, this is amazing! He was doing this in 1958!* “There were people who thought we should use the original music,” Valdez said, “but my choice was always to go with rerecording. The original masters had been recorded in mono. The quality just would not have been what we wanted for a motion picture. “Also, the approach to the music was really born of a whole concept. We wanted to recreate the 1950 s with a 1980 s sensibility. -Consequently, we went with Los Lobos and Marshall Crenshaw as Buddy Holly, Brian Setzer (Stray Cats) as Eddie Cochran and Howard Huntsberry (Klique) as Jackie Wilson. Our music is still extremely faithful to the 19505, ■but it has an ’Bos beat.” In addition to the modem rockers, the “La Bamba” soundtrack, on Slash-Warner Brothers Records, features such legendary artists as Bo Diddley and Little Richard, who, Valdez said sparked Valens’s creativity.

In researching the film, Valdez spoke with Bob Keene, who signed Valens to Del-Fi Records.

half-brother and younger sisters spoke at length with Valdez. They even appear in “La Bamba” as extras.

project from the instant the producer, Taylor Hackford, and the associate producer, Daniel Valdez, Luis’s brother, proposed it to him.

“Bob said that Ritchie had a cry in his voice. There was a lot of joy in Ritchie, but there was a hint of sadness too. This is a kid who used to carry a guitar with him everywhere he went from the time he was four. His dad and his uncles played guitar. Ritchie would sit in his uncle’s lap and plunk the guitar strings while the uncle played chords. Ritchie was never without his guitar.” Valdez also discovered many of the intimate details of Valen’s life and death from the Valenzuela family. Valens’s mother,

Affinity

“There are strong similarities between Ritchie’s background and mine,” said Valdez. “His mother came from Northern Mexico, as my grandparents did. In the 1950 s Ritchie followed the crops, as ,all the Chicanos did.

“When I was in high school, I was really into rock ‘n’ roll. But frankly, I didn’t even know that Ritchie Valens was a Chicano until the 19605. He had Anglicised and simplified his name, as everyone else did in that era. That was show biz.

Initially hesitant to open up to the film-makers, they gradually gave their total trust. “The timing wasn’t right until now,” said Valdez. “Nostalgia for the ’sos has become stronger. And the awareness of the Hispanic presence in America has grown tremendously in the last decade or so.” Valdez felt an affinity for the

“He worked up in Northern California, in Santa Clara Valley, in many of the same areas I worked with my family. I was just a few months older than Ritchie. I could easily have met him. Unfortunately, I never did.

“Still, I was happy that ‘La Bamba,’ the standard Mexican folkloric piece, had become a rock ‘n’ roll hit. For years afterwards, my brother and I were in great demand at parties, because we could sing ‘La Bamba.’ It was a terrific way to meet girls.” Valdez attempted to capture the emotions, as well as the music of that era. “I wanted to take the story

deeper into that period of our history than other films have done. To me, the ’sos weren’t happy days at all. For the Chicanos, it was like the 19305, the depression. “I hope that ‘La Bamba’ proves that Hispanic stories can get across to a broad audience. They are just part of the whole American reality.

“If people can get a better sense of where' we are today by looking back to the images of 30 years ago, I’ll be quite happy. I’ll feel that Ritchie’s memory will have been well served.” (c) 1987, By Paul Freeman. Distributed by Los Angeles., Times Syndicate. •