LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ritchie Valens: Richard Valenzuela
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Ritchie's mother, Concepcion "Connie" Valenzuela already had another son from a previous marriage named Robert Morales who was four years old at the time of Ritchie's birth. For a few years the Valenzuela family lived a fairly "steady" life at 1337 Coronel Street in San
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After this first 'audition', Keane decided to sign Ritchie to Del-Fi, and a contract was prepared and signed on May 27, 1958. It was at this point that he took the name Ritchie, because, as Keane said, "There were a bunch of 'Richies' around at that time, and I wanted it to be different." Similarly, it was Keane who decided to shorten his surname to Valens from Valenzuela, in order to broaden his appeal.
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Trini Lopez hit it big with the song in 1966 when he gave it a lighter pop-rock feel compared to Ritchie's version. Probably the rarest version of "La Bamba" is a 1961 recording by then-unknowns Mick Jagger and Keith Richards - who were seventeen years old at the time - recorded during a jam session in the living room of a friend. That friend later sold the tape at a Christie's auction in the mid-Eighties for $81,000.
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Richard Valenzuela