"La Bamba" is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a top 40 hit in the U.S. charts and one of early rock and roll's best-known songs. Valens' version of…
"La Bamba" is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a top 40 hit in the U.S. charts and one of early rock and roll's best-known songs. Valens' version of "La Bamba" is included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies and ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine′s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is the only song on the list sung in a language other than English.
"La Bamba" has been covered by numerous artists, most notably by Los Lobos, whose version was the title track of the 1987 film La Bamba, a bio-pic about Valens, and reached No. 1 in the U.S. and UK singles charts in the same year.
The traditional song inspired Ritchie Valens' rock and roll version "La Bamba" in 1958. Valens' "La Bamba" infused the traditional tune with a rock drive, in part provided by session musicians Earl Palmer and Carol Kaye, making the song popular with a much wider record audience and earning it (and Valens) a place in rock history (he was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001). The musicians on that session were Buddy Clark: string bass, Ernie Freeman: piano, Carol Kaye: acoustic rhythm guitar, René Hall: Danelectro guitar (six-string baritone guitar), Earl Palmer: drums and claves, Ritchie Valens: vocals, lead guitar.
The song features a simple verse-chorus form. Valens, who was proud of his Mexican heritage, was hesitant at first to merge "La Bamba" with rock and roll but then agreed. The song ranked No. 98 in VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Rock and Roll in 1999, and No. 59 in VH1's 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2000. Furthermore, Valens' recording of the song was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame.
When the Los Lobos cover of Valens' version peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1987, Valens was posthumously credited with writing a No. 1 single.
In 2019, Valens' version was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[It is also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 songs that were influential in shaping rock and roll.
I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS VIDEO. NO INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!
