Chicano rock The Sir Douglas Quintet, Thee Midniters, Los Lobos, Malo, War, Tierra, and El Chicano all have made music that is heavily based on 1950s R&B, even when general trends moved away from the original sound of rock as time went by. Chicano rock 'n' roll star Ritchie Valens, was a Mexican-American singer and songwriter influential in the Chicano rock movement. He recorded numerous hits during his short career, most notably the 1958 hit "La Bamba." Valens died at age 17 in a plane crash with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper on February 3, 1959. The tragedy was
Ritchie Valens been painted around Pacoima in honor of the late Ritchie Valens. In 1985, artist Manuel Velasquez (assisted by 25 students) created a 12 foot by 20 foot mural which was painted on the side of a classroom building at the former Pacoima Junior High (now Pacoima Middle School) depicting Ritchie Valens' image, records labeled with some of his greatest hits, as well as the newspaper article about the plane crash that took his life. Another mural went up in 2012 at the intersection of Van Nuys Boulevard and Amboy Avenue and was painted by Hector Ponce. A second one was