Rock music roll. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an
Ritchie Valens accident. It is located on private farmland, about one-quarter mile west of the intersection of 315th Street and Gull Avenue, about north of Clear Lake. He also created a similar stainless-steel monument to the three musicians that was installed near the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That memorial was unveiled on July 17, 2003. A park in Pacoima was renamed in Ritchie Valens' honor in the 1990s. Originally named Paxton Park, a city council member representing Pacoima proposed the renaming to honor Valens so residents will "remember his humble background and emulate his accomplishments." Musician Tommy Allsup started a