The Complete Ritchie Valens

"The Complete Ritchie Valens DVD combines a nearly two-hour video documentary on the 1950s rocker's life with an audio program offering all 28 of his studio masters, as well as a digital scrapbook of memorabilia and a foldout booklet with photos and (fairly brief) liner notes. Since all of Valens' recordings have been issued on standard audio CDs, the chief attraction of this package is the video portion. As Valens was a recording artist for less than a year, one might suspect that stretching his life story out to a two-hour documentary is pushing it. That's kind of true, but hey, those interested enough in the phenom to lay out for a DVD may as well get more, not less. The video program consists largely of reasonably informative, though not compelling 1990s interviews with several close relatives, some DJs and show promoters and, most vitally, his producer, Bob Keane. The memories of Carl Bunch, who was in Buddy Holly's Crickets during the early 1959 tour that was Valens' last (and also backed Valens onstage), provides some interesting musician insider information. The details of that last tour, and the plane crash that claimed the lives of Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper, are dragged out for quite some time; some of those minutes might have been better spent interviewing the surviving musicians who played on Valens' recordings, such as bassist Carol Kaye and drummer Earl Palmer. Lamentably, there's just a small snippet of actual live Ritchie Valens footage, from a home movie without sound. The interactive program consists of a few dozen photos from both his boyhood and the late '50s (including shots from that final tour and several of the plane crash); a few vintage press clippings; a basic discography; and links to web sites of interest. Incidentally, the audio program does not include every last Valens recording; additional home recordings and live material have also been released, most comprehensively on the three-CD set Come On, Let's Go!."