Bruce Johnston, Ritchie Valens and "Donna"

[RockabillyNBlues]

Cool story from Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston on his connection to Ritchie Valens and Donna Ludwig!  http://rockabillynblues.blogspot.com/2013/01/bruce-johnston-ritchie-valens-and-donna.html

[pixletwin]

Interesting info. Terrible song though.

[MBE]

I love that song.

[pixletwin]

Which one "Donna" or the terrible one? 

[MBE]

Oh the song Donna, not Donna's record!

[Chris Brown]

Cool story, even though Donna's song is pretty awful.  Always been a big fan of "Donna" though.

[Custom Machine]

Thanks for posting this story.  As a huge fan of Ritchie Valens' music, I have always wished the Beach Boys would cover Valens' song Rockin' All Night, adding a ton of harmonies.  Bruce Johnston later went to work for Valens' label Del-Fi Records and released his first LP, Surfer's Pajama Party, on Del-fi.

[MBE]

Dennis mentioned Valens as a favorite in an interview.

[shelter]

Wow, that might be one of the very worst songs I've ever heard...

Shame about Ritchie Valens. Even though he was still just a kid when he died, he left us a handful of true rock & roll classics. 'Come On, Let's Go' is one of the best songs of the 1950s, if you ask me. Who knows what he would've been able to do if he would've gotten some more time. Same goes for Holly, obviously.

[RockabillyNBlues]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Ritchie so it was cool to hear about this.  I always loved his guitar tone too.

[Jon Stebbins]

Ritchie Valens had a direct influence on the Beach Boys early guitar sound due to Carl and David's first guitar teacher John Maus ( who later became John Walker of the Walker Bros.) John was a close friend of Valens, performed with him, and learned some of his guitar techniques directly from Ritchie,. Maus in turn taught the same things to Carl and David in the 1958 - 1959 period. In fact Dave plays a Donna style rhythm part on Surfer Girl which he has acknowledged came from the Maus/Valens influence, and was something that Brian appreciated. All of this is recounted in The Lost Beach Boy book, and there's also a good amount of stories about the Valens /Maus relationship in the Walker Bros. book No Regrets, including a photo of John and Valens together.

[Custom Machine]

Dennis mentioned Valens as a favorite in an interview.

Great to hear that Dennis mentioned Valens as a favorite.  Do you recall when and where the interview took place?  Was it published in a mag, and/or perhaps available on the net?

[Custom Machine]

Ritchie Valens had a direct influence on the Beach Boys early guitar sound due to Carl and David's first guitar teacher John Maus ( who later became John Walker of the Walker Bros.) John was a close friend of Valens, performed with him, and learned some of his guitar techniques directly from Ritchie,. Maus in turn taught the same things to Carl and David in the 1958 - 1959 period. In fact Dave plays a Donna style rhythm part on Surfer Girl which he has acknowledged came from the Maus/Valens influence, and was something that Brian appreciated. All of this is recounted in The Lost Beach Boy book, and there's also a good amount of stories about the Valens /Maus relationship in the Walker Bros. book No Regrets, including a photo of John and Valens together.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Walker Bros book No Regrets.  (Finally found it after wading thru a bunch of books on Amazon titled No Regrets, the most popular being from Ace Frehley.)  Anyone who is interested in the formative early years of the Beach Boys story absolutely must read Jon and David's book, The Lost Beach Boy.  It covers that era far better than anything else out there, and is filled with interesting anecdotes.

[the professor]

RV is buried up in the Catholic cemetery in San Fernando, not far from Pacoima where he is from; the opening notes to La Bamba and "come on let's go" are inscribed on his tomb. Makes you cry. I have yet to take the day trip there to see it in person.

 But I often recount in class the shared RV and BB history I learned from Jon, which he summarizes here in a post above. I teach at an historically Hispanic institution (students all know those sings still) and have occasion to talk about LA music history from time to time, weaving in our BB, RV, the Doors, etc. Thanks Jon, again, for that historical record.