Donna

The first time I heard Donna on a worn-out vinyl record, what struck me most was that air between ballad and rock that envelops Ritchie Valens' voice. It's not just a teenage love song: it sounds like something bigger, as if the rhythm moves to the beat of a heart pounding with urgency. The acoustic guitar and bass carve out a simple yet effective path, while the drums set a pulse that never stops, as if time itself were accelerating. What really makes it special, though, is this detail: Valens doesn't sing as if he's asking for permission, but as if he already knows he's going to be heard.

They recorded it in a single take on September 16, 1958, at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. Bob Keene led the session, and behind the controls were Earl Palmer on drums, Buddy Clark on bass, and a team of guitarists that included Valens himself, Rene Hall, Irving Ashby, and Carol Kaye. The result was a single released that September, with La Bamba on the B-side. But here's the curious part: even though Donna was already blasting on the radios, it wasn't until October that it started climbing the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 3. Three weeks before his death in February 1959, it peaked at number 2, just behind Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price. On the Hot R&B Sides chart, it climbed all the way to number 11.