Ritchie Valens Stamp

**This Ritchie Valens stamp is a part of the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my hub page dedicated to this long-running and important project of the United States Postal Service.

The Legends of American Music ostensibly began with the release of the Elvis Presley stamp in January of 1993. However, the Elvis stamp was also a part of the Rock & Roll and R&B set released on June 16th. The Elvis stamp was a juggernaut by itself, selling more than 500 million copies. It sucked all the oxygen out of the room, so to speak, in terms of the larger Legends project. So in many ways, it was when the full set came out six months later that the series really started.

I am very critical of the Legends series. The very first set was problematic and encapsulates some of the overall issues. The rock & roll stamps include Elvis, Ritchie Valens, Bill Haley, and Buddy Holly. Three of these musicians were white, and Ritchie Valens was Mexican American. Yet, rock & roll was a genre that came out of primarily Black music and many of the first generation of superstars were Black. It was one of the important aspects of the genre, that so many Black artists became mainstream stars with white teenagers.

The problem was that the USPS had a rule that only people dead for at least ten years could appear on stamps. Therefore, such legendary Black rock & rollers such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry were ineligible. Obviously, the USPS could not release a rock & roll set with primarily white musicians, which is why the set was expanded to include R&B artists. Did that help? At least the set isn’t completely white. But you really can’t talk about early rock & roll without Richard and Berry, so the set is musically compromised.

Ritchie Valens

There is no doubt that Ritchie Valens is one of the great artists of early rock & roll. Born Richard Valenzuela in Los Angeles, California to Mexican parents, he grew up surrounded by traditional Mexican musical styles. He learned to play the guitar, trumpet, and drums. Valens became quite good and joined a local band at the age of sixteen playing the guitar. When the lead singer quite the band, Valens became the main vocalist.

The following year (1958), Bob Keane, who owned Del-Fi Records in Hollywood, signed the young singer. Keane convinced him to change his name to Ritchie Valens. His first record was a single made in July of that year and included the song “Come On, Let’s Go,” on the A side and “Framed” on the B side. The songs were a hit and he soon recorded another, billed as a “double A” side with the songs “Donna” and La Bamba.” This second record sold over one million copies and Valens became a bona fide rock star by the fall of 1958.

In early 1959, Valens joined a Midwest tour with multiple rock & roll acts. The tour was billed as the “Winter Dance Party,” and include Buddy Holly as well as J. P. Richardson, known as “The Big Bopper.” The tour was miserable as the artists drove long hours on a bus in the cold Midwestern winter. After the February 2nd concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, Valens, Holly, and Richardson decided to take a plane. They wanted to avoid an all night road trip on a cold bus and instead fly to their next gig in Fargo, North Dakota. A few minutes after the plane took off, it crashed and killed all on board. The Don McLean song “American Pie,” later dubbed the event as “the day the music died.”

The Stamp

The design for the Ritchie Valens stamp was by Mark Stutzman. He also was the designer for the Elvis stamp, as well as the Buddy Holly and Billy Haley stamps in the set. All of these stamps are in the same, almost cartoon-like style. I am not a big fan of the aesthetic design, and think that Valens is almost unrecognizable in the illustration.

The stamp, like the series, was important for recognizing so many extraordinary musicians. Highlight Valens, a first generation immigrant from a Mexican family, was an important step. In fact, the song “La Bamba,” was the first rock & roll hit to be sung completely in a language other than English. It remains one of the great classic songs of the genre.

It’s a great song to listen to over and over again!