Anniversary of Ritchie Valens' death in 1959 - hear him during his return to Pacoima Junior High in Dec. 1958

L.A. Observed today remembers Ritchie Valens, who perished in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper on this day in 1959 (as chronicled in "American Pie," the overplayed Don McLean song, not the terrible movies that took its name).

In the L.A. Observed post, Kevin Roderick includes a YouTube video with an audio snippet of "Ritchie Valens In Concert at Pacoima Jr. High":

It strikes me how original Ritchie Valens' music was at the time - how he wasn't in any way hiding his Chicano heritagebut was simultaneously letting people know where he came from as well as fusing the emerging sound of rock and roll with more traditional and generally unheard (at that time) musical elements.

If you haven't done so already, go back to the L.A. Observed entry for an excerpt on Valens from Kevin's still-excellent San Fernando Valley book.

Note: I picked the above photo because it shows Ritchie Valens playing a sweet Gibson guitar. You really can't tell from here, but I think it's a thinline and not a full-sized ES-175 type of guitar. You can tell both by the placement of the neck pickup as well as the overly long tailpiece. I'm pretty sure it's a dual-pickup ES-225td.