July 9, 2025: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens

[On July 6, 1925, Bill Haley was born. So for that centennial I’ll share blog posts on Haley and other rock ‘n roll pioneers, leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post featuring recent rock recs!]

On two ways to separate a forever-linked pair, and one non-tragic way to pair them.

The first way I’d separate Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens is found in a prior post: this one, where I argue that the prominence given to Holly and not to Valens in Don McLean’s iconic song “American Pie” (1971) is due, at least in part, to the former’s whiteness in contrast to the latter’s Mexican American heritage. I stand by that argument, and would ask you to check out that prior post before I say a bit more about this famously tragic pair of pioneers.

Welcome back! Whether you agree with my take on McLean’s song or not, there’s no disputing that these two young musicians came from profoundly different heritages, not only ethnically but also and even more relevantly musically. Buddy Holly (1936-59) was born into a musical family in Depression-era Lubbock, Texas, and grew up influenced by the country music world that they were part of, including listening to the Grand Ole Opry radio program. Ritchie Valens (1941-59) was born into a Mexican American family in California’s San Fernando Valley, and grew up listening to and making with his community traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well as learning the flamenco guitar that had made its way from Spain to Hispanic America. As that last hyperlinked piece puts it, those influences made Valens a pioneer of Chicano rock, while Holly might best be described through the country-rock hybrid known as rockabilly. Both of those heritages and influences were unquestionably part of early rock, but, to echo and extend the point of my earlier post, I believe that our collective narratives have tended to prioritize country/rockabilly, making it that much more important for us to add Valens and the legacy of mariachi music in this era (and beyond).

Despite those important differences, however, there are also important ways to link Holly and Valens, even if we leave aside their shared tragic endpoint. To cite one striking example: Valens’s youthful successes are well known, as he signed a record deal just after his 17^th birthday and by the end of that year was performing on the Dick Clark Show and at the Apollo Theater; but Holly was an equally impressive teen prodigy, starting his first band at the age of 17, opening for Elvis Presley while still just 18, and signing his own record deal at 19. Popular music has long been defined by teen idols, but I feel that sometimes the narratives suggest that that trend evolved over time, or at least became more pronounced in eras like the 80s (for example). But in truth, some of early rock ‘n roll’s most prominent and popular artists were teenagers, immediately establishing this evolving genre as not only directed at teen audiences, but frequently created by teen artists as well. A story that we can’t tell without the forever linked pair of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

Next groundbreaker tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What recent rock would you recommend for the weekend post?