Ritchie Valens

Kim Fowley's rock 'n' roll exegesis 'Lord of Garbage'

2013-03-04 07:44:00

Kim Fowley came out of a Hollywood that doesn’t exist anymore, the Hollywood of Kenneth Anger and Ed Wood. Best known for cooking up the Runaways, he began to work in the music business in the late 1950s and since then has turned up in more places...

Eastside record label still spinning out the music

2013-01-08 18:26:00

Hector Gonzalez straps a five-string bass guitar over his belly inside a music studio on a dreary stretch of Monterey Park. He plays as a smooth, prerecorded tenor joins a funky accordion through his headphones. Trying to bite a bullet, or sometimes...

Southern California Close-Ups: San Fernando Valley

2012-03-30 16:44:00

First published on April 24, 2011. Revised and expanded in early 2012. The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south...

PASSINGS: Fred Milano, William Polk Carey, Mike Colalillo

2012-01-04 00:00:00

Fred Milano Doo-wop singer with Dion and the Belmonts Fred Milano, 72, a singer who made rock 'n' roll history on doo-wop hits with Dion and the Belmonts in the 1950s, died Sunday, three weeks after his lung cancer was diagnosed, said Warren Gradus, who...

At Grammy Museum, spirit of protest will offer break from awards

2012-02-11 16:37:35

David Wax Museum brings Mexican masters' lessons to Wiltern

2011-08-15 21:36:26

San Fernando Valley: 11 micro-itineraries

2011-04-24 00:00:00

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe — now that it'...

PASSINGS: Johnny Preston, Lina Ron, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Jimmy Carnes

2011-03-09 00:00:00

Johnny Preston Singer had No. 1 hit with 'Running Bear' Johnny Preston, 71, who had a No. 1 pop single in 1960 with "Running Bear," died Friday at a hospital in Beaumont, Texas, his son Scott told the Associated Press. The elder Preston had bypass...

Stan Ross dies at 82; producer-engineer co-founded Gold Star studio

2011-03-17 00:00:00

Producer-engineer Stan Ross, who co-founded Hollywood's Gold Star Recording Studio, which has a storied place in rock history as the home of Phil Spector's innovative "Wall of Sound" technique, has died. He was 82. Ross died Friday at Providence St....

PASSINGS: Gil Clancy, Zoogz Rift, Carl Bunch, David E. Davis Jr., James Pritchett, James M. Roberts, Pat Rowe

2011-04-01 00:00:00

Gil Clancy Boxing trainer Gil Clancy, 88, a boxing trainer who helped lead Emile Griffith to welterweight and middleweight titles, died Thursday at an assisted-living facility on Long Island, N.Y., his family said. Born in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., in...

PASSINGS: Zoogz Rift, Carl Bunch, David E. Davis Jr., James Pritchett, James M. Roberts, Pat Rowe

2011-03-31 00:00:00

Zoogz Rift Punk rock musician Zoogz Rift, 57, a punk rock musician whose experimental style garnered comparisons with Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, died March 22 at Encino Hospital of complications from diabetes, said his partner, Laura Rift....

Ritchie Valens and ‘Donna’

2010-11-19 04:32:41

was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter. Valens was a Rock and Roll pioneer who had a string of hits in the 1950's. His hits included La Bamba, Come on let's go and Donna. Valens died in a plane crash in 1959.

2013-04-13 00:00:00

The Pacoima-born Ritchie Valens had recently scored big hits with the double-sided single "Donna" and "La Bamba." At the time his plane went down on Feb. 3, 1959, he was only 17. More:

2012-12-10 13:03:33

The 22-year-old singer of "That'll Be The Day" and other hits was flying from one Midwest concert to another when the small plane carrying him, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens went down in February 1959 near Clear Lake, Iowa. More:

2012-12-10 11:49:44