Fans Want Valens in Rock Hall of Fame

The bands, carnival rides, Aztec-style dancers and city proclamations notwithstanding, the family, friends and fans who gathered Saturday to remember this neighborhood’s most famous native son were left with one nagging question.

Why isn’t wholesome and handsome Ritchie Valens already inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum?

“It just seems bizarre that it would even be a question of whether to accept Ritchie into the Hall of Fame,” said Debbie Lee Esparza of Pasadena, one of 200 fans who came to the sunbaked Ritchie Valens Recreation Center to remember its namesake. “He should already be a member.”

Esparza and more than 100 others signed postcards and petitions urging his induction. The postcards will be sent to the Hall of Fame in Cleveland, in an attempt to influence members of its nominating committee to include Valens this year.

Born Richard Valenzuela 55 years ago Monday, Valens soared to fame in the late 1950s. He died at the age of 17 with fellow rockers J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Buddy Holly in a 1959 plane crash.

Best known for his modern adaptation of the Mexican folk song “La Bamba,” Valens also topped the charts with “Come On, Let’s Go” and “Donna.”

The petition and postcard drive is designed to coincide with the birthday celebration, said Bryan Thomas, vice president of creative services at Del-Fi Records, Valens’ label. He said the record company hopes to gather 10,000 postcards and signatures by the end of the summer.

Valens’ family members, including a brother and a nephew who performed ‘50s music at the park, said the squeaky-clean musician deserves induction because of his talent and his status as a Latino role model.

Many at the party Saturday reckoned that Valens’ relatively small body of work and, to a lesser extent, his ethnicity, explained the omission. So far, according to Thomas and others, no Latino musicians have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

To be inducted into the Hall of Fame, a rocker must first get the nod from a member of the nominating committee, many of whom are affiliated with big record labels, explained Del-Fi’s Thomas. Then 600 members of the Hall of Fame--musicians, critics and recording executives--vote on the nominees, seven of whom are accepted yearly. Rock artists aren’t eligible until 25 years after their musical debut, which would have been 1983 in Valens’ case.

“He should have been in the very first group of people inducted,” Thomas said.

Valens’ aunt, Ernestine Reyes, and sister, Connie Alvarez, agreed. “This is his year,” said Reyes, who teared up remembering her favorite Valens song, the lesser-known “Stay Beside Me.”

To further the induction effort, City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the Northeast Valley, announced that his office was forwarding blank postcards to 3,600 homes and apartments in Pacoima.

“It’s not just about promoting Ritchie Valens,” Alarcon said, touting the grass-roots effort to further a home-grown hero. “It’s about promoting Pacoima. It’s about someone who was a good kid, who cared about his family, who worked hard.” Sitting in the shade with his wife and daughter, Ivar Esparza said Valens was a personal role model when he was in junior high school.

Although Valens’ early death partially explains why he hasn’t been inducted, the Pasadena resident suspected that race played a part. “As Mexican Americans, we’re not that vocal,” he mused. “We don’t just get opportunities, we have to fight for them. . . . It’s kind of disgusting that the community has to go through all this to get Ritchie” into the Hall of Fame. But watching children engrossed by a “La Bamba” puppet show inside the recreation center, Alvarez preferred to focus on the kudos already showered on her older brother: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990 and later, a 29-cent stamp bearing his cherry-cheeked likeness.

And she prefers not to remember her brother as dead. “If Ritchie was dead, would there be a recreation center here?” she asked. “Would they still be playing his music? No. His memory still lives.”