SPRINGFIELD – For most people, a decision about a career usually comes well after high school. Sometimes even after college, or maybe later than that. Joshua Josue had the good fortune of knowing what he wanted to do when he was only 13 or 14 years old.
That’s when he and his sister saw the music video and the 1987 movie “La Bamba” for the first time. They were accustomed to seeing Chicanos portrayed as drug-dealers and gangbangers on TV, but the movie – featuring the band Los Lobos – showed Mexican-Americans in a whole new light, making beautiful music.
“It was a pivotal moment for me,” Josue said after his Night of Rock ’n’ Roll Tribute show to Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens at the Wildish Theater on Saturday night. “I saw the movie and said, ‘This is it! This is what I want to do’.”
Shortly after that, a friend took Joshua over to see a friend named Clay who had a garage band.
“They were playing Buddy Holly songs and oldies and doing two- and three-part harmonies, which was the first time I had ever seen anybody do that live,” Josue said. “You see it on TV, you see The Beatles do it, but to see these other kids playing … that garage band also inspired me.”
“La Bamba” also made quite an impression on his sister – but in a different way.
“It impacted her because she got to hear the ‘La Bamba’ soundtrack nonstop for the next year and a half,” Josue said. “I was playing it in the car, at the house, every chance I could get.”
There’s something quite intoxicating about the music of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, who died in a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959.
Just hearing the opening lines of Holly’s ‘Oh Boy’ is enough to get any music fan’s juices flowing:
All of my love, all of my kissin’
You don’t know what you’ve been a-missin’
Oh boy, when you’re with me, ho boy
The world can see that you were meant for me
“Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens have a lot of simple, three-chord songs,” Josue said. “The music sounds simple, but there’s so much creativity there. I’d bet anybody a million dollars to write that good of a song. Something about their music – there’s some magic there.”
Josue said he enjoys stumbling across those magical musical moments – and it’s not necessarily while he’s playing. It can happen when you least expect it.
“I don’t buy into a lot of spiritualism or anything like that, but sometimes I feel like music grabs you, and it’s not always the same, and there’s no rhyme or reason why it happens,” Josue said.
“But when the music touches you, it touches you. You can be someplace from the earliest times and people are beating on rocks or tree trunks. … What rhyme or reason is there that you can listen to a piece of classical music or blues music that doesn’t have lyrics, but you hear it and it brings tears to your eyes and it does something to you. Why?”
That’s one of those questions that can’t really be answered. We don’t just listen to music so we can tap our toes and clap our hands. It has a special way of touching our souls.
And that’s the case with Holly and Valens, who made such a huge impact on the music world in such a short time. Holly was 22 and Valens was 17 when they died. The crash also killed J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson, 28, and pilot Roger Peterson, 21.
Tough to imagine what they might have accomplished if they had lived long and healthy lives. Valens’ musical career lasted only seven months.
“Buddy was looking at doing some producing. He wanted more of a producer role. There are rumors that Buddy wanted to produce Ritchie Valens,” Josue said. “He was also looking at taking acting lessons and getting into film. I could see him producing music and guiding younger artists.
“I could see Ritchie paving a path right there side-by-side with Carlos Santana and being part of that 70s Chicano movement. But you never know. You see these guys with so much talent, then they’re gone. And all we have is this small sample of music they left for us.”
Josue and his band “Not Fade Away” played one set of Buddy Holly songs Saturday, highlighted by “Peggy Sue” and “That’ll Be the Day,” then one song (“Chantilly Lace”) by The Big Bopper, and finished up with a second set of Ritchie Valens tunes, including “Oh Donna” and “Fast Break,” a song that showcases his guitar skills.
Always trying to copy Holly’s mannerisms and appearance, Josue would always buy fake horn-rimmed glasses. Then the day finally came recently when the 51-year-old Portland resident needed his own prescription glasses, so he could forget about the fake ones.
But on Saturday night, he forgot about the real ones and played the first song of the Ritchie Valens set with his glasses still on.
“I suddenly realized my vision was very clear, and then I knew why,” Josue said. That’s the first time I’ve ever forgotten to take my glasses off between shows.”
With or without the glasses, Josue’s focus is in a really good place.
