Ritchie Valens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1959)

Ritchie Valens

American rock musician (1941–1959)

Richard Steven Valenzuela, better known by his stage name Ritchie Valens, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens died in a plane crash just eight months after his breakthrough.