ABSTRACT
Latin-rock label founded by Bob Keane (sometimes spelled “Keene”) in 1957. Keane (born Robert Kuhn, 5 Jan 1922, in Manhattan Beach, California), was a clarinetist who had his own southern California band between 1948-1953; in 1953, he took over Artie Shaw’s big band. He briefly worked for the Keen label in 1957 before founding his own Del-Fi label to record local Mexican-American musicians in the Los Angeles area. He signed young Latin singer Ritchie Valens, and scored a minor hit in 1958 with “C’Mon Let’s Go,” and then broke big with the number two hit “Donna” (Del-Fi 4110). Its flip side was Valens’s classic “La Bamba,” which was only a Top 25 hit in early 1959, but has since become a classic. Valens tragically died in the same plane crash that took the life of Buddy Holly in February 1959, and Keane lost his biggest potential hitmaker. Later, Keane issued a few more hits, including Chan Romero’s classic “Hippy Hippy Shake” (1959; Del-Fi 4119; covered by the British pop group, The Swinging Blue Jeans [#24, 1964; Imperial 66021]), and Little Caesar and the Romans (“Those Oldies but Goodies [Remind Me of You]”[#9, 1961; Del-Fi 4158]). In the early 1960s, Del-Fi and the related Donna label were issuing surf-guitar music. In 1965, Keane founded a new label, Mustang, to feature a Texas-based rock band, the Bobby Fuller Four. Fuller had a number nine hit with “I Fought the Law” (February 1966; Mustang 3014), before committing suicide later that year. Keane continues to reissue his recordings on Del-Fi CDs, and also in early 2000 self-published his autobiography, The Oracle of Del-Fi. In 2001, he founded DF2K to sign new acts. [Website: https://www.del-fi.com./]
CARL BENSON
An important member of the audio-journalism community, Dell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His father worked as an installer for Western Electric, and the family moved throughout the South until 1935. As a result, Dell attended 17 different public schools before graduating from Ponce de Leon High School in Coral Gables Florida, in 1941. During World War II he attended college by day and worked as an electrician in Bethlehem Steel’s Hingham hipyard evenings. Dell holds a B.A. in history, a Th.B. in theology from Eastern Nazarene College, Wollaston, Massachusetts, and a M.Div. From Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He held three Episcopal parish appointments in Massachusetts before moving to a journalism appointment. In 1962, he became a reporter for The Episcopalian magazine, a national monthly of the Episcopal Church, and ended his career there as managing editor in 1974. His work involved extensive travel throughout North America, Europe, and in five Pacific Rim countries.
