La Bamba (film) - Background

Background

This production had the full support of the Valenzuela family. Bob Morales and Connie Valenzuela came to the set to help the actors portray their characters accurately, and Connie makes a cameo appearance as an older lady sitting next to Ritchie at the family's first party.

Phillips bonded with the Valenzuelas and, at one point, actually became Ritchie to them. This led to an incident involving Ritchie's sister: When at the screening she sees Phillips (as Valens) boarding the plane for their ill-fated flight, the scene was interrupted by Connie Lemos (Ritchie's real-life sister), who was only six years old when her brother died. She was said to hysterically grab onto Phillips and shout, "Don't go Ritchie! Please don't get on the plane! Why did you have to die?" Connie admitted on Behind the Music that she realized at that moment that she never fully accepted her brother's death.

The original title of this film was "Let's Go", named for Valens' hit song: "Come On, Let's Go!"

All of Ritchie Valens' songs were performed by Los Lobos. The band has a cameo in the movie wherein they sang in the brothel ballroom in Tijuana. Brian Setzer has a cameo as Eddie Cochran performing "Summertime Blues" onstage, and Marshall Crenshaw plays Buddy Holly performing "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" at the final concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. They and other musicians portraying The Big Bopper and Jackie Wilson also provided recordings for the film.

Ritchie Valens was only 17 years old when he died, eight months after he signed to Del-Fi Records and produced three songs that hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Don McLean immortalized Ritchie and his friends' deaths as "The Day the Music Died", when he chronicled his reaction to hearing about the plane crash in his song "American Pie".