Carnival of Soul

Richie DeLuna lived and loved music. 

That’s a reality for most people who decide to make a career out of the art form, but perhaps even more so for someone who was old enough to be around for Beatlemania and grew up just miles away from where Buddy Holly played his last show. Those are building blocks to a strong rock foundation.

By the late 1960s, after he figured out how to play songs such as “Purple Haze” on guitar, DeLuna played in bands with names such as The Butterscotch Field that would play at long-since-defunct Mason City-area music venues like the old YWCA.  

When the 1970s rolled around and DeLuna (born Dennis Luna) got his feet a little wetter, he and a wholly different band called Magnum managed to snag a gig opening for southern rockers Black Oak Arkansas at an outdoor-concert near Spencer, Iowa. 

The height for him, though, was a show at the Surf Ballroom in 1979. 

DeLuna and his band Corn Fed, the one he’s best known for around the North Iowa area, kicked off the first Buddy Holly Tribute show which has now grown into a cottage industry as the Winter Dance Party which is held every year to coincide with the “Day the Music Died.”

Even later in life, when he dealt with liver complications that led to his death in 2013 at the age of 60, DeLuna would still be recording and reworking the hundreds of songs he had. 

And after a seven-year campaign, that work is now being recognized by the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

The King of Guitar

DeLuna will be one of more than a dozen artists to be inducted into the hall over the weekend of Sept. 4, 2020 and though he won’t be able to enjoy the recognition, his brother David Luna will be.

“It’s been long overdue, and I’ve said it’s going to be the last thing I do because he certainly deserves it,” David said. “Everybody used to call him ‘The King’ because he was the King of Guitar.”

To this day, David still has this kind of kid-brother awe when talking about Richie’s work. When he reflects on a show of Richie’s from the mid-1970s, he says his brother’s playing then was “on another level.” The music comparisons David makes for his brother are even more laudatory. “He’s got a song that sounds like Carlos Santana … Stevie Ray Vaughan was a big, big influence for him too.”

Others closely familiar with Richie’s work back up such claims.

Roger Schinagel, a member of the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a regional consultant for the Iowa Rock and Roll Music Association, agrees with those brotherly assertions.

“If you listen to many of his songs, he sounds a lot like Stevie Ray Vaughn. He can sound bluesy or really rock it,” Schinagel acknowledged. But there were also flecks of artists such as David Bowie and the Velvet Underground that would filter into what Richie was doing as well. 

Schinagel, who just last year helped the Mason City band The Ravons get in, said that one thing the hall looks for is impact. And he believes that Richie aces that test.

“I know Richie taught a lot of people around here to play and they became members of bands too. People wanted to play like him. He was such an incredible guitar player and songwriter,” Schinagel said.

Pupils

Dan Rish is one of those people in North Iowa that were inspired by Richie’s work and learned from him. 

In the early days of Corn Fed, an underage Rish would sneak into extinct the Stagecoach bar and catch sets from Richie. Rish was nervous meeting him, even more so when he got good enough to play alongside Richie.

“I remember being really nervous because he’s one of my idols. Knowing how particular he is. But I remember being really excited as well,” Rish reflected. 

Rish, who still plays in the band Flyer, did a lot with Ritchie in a number of different projects over the years, including the last sessions that Richie ever did before he died. 

But there’s another, simpler, memory about Richie that looms largest in Rish’s mind.

“We used to travel together and we would get in his Blazer and go gravel roading and listen to our recordings. Sometimes we would stop at these little hole-in-the-wall bars in these small towns and talk about what we were going to do next,” he said.

Nothing complicated. Just two friends talking music.

Another local musician who’s made it to the Iowa Rock Hall and played with Richie, John Behm, is similar in his exuberance for Richie and what he did.

“Ritchie helped steer me into some great music and for that I owe a debt of gratitude,” Behm said.

Finally in

When Richie does finally occupy a permanent spot in the Iowa Rock Hall, it’ll be a mix of joy and sadness for friends and family of his. Folks like David and Dan and John are happy to see him make but disappointed with the time it took.

His brother David isn’t bitter about it though. He understands how much of it is all just happenstance.

“He wasn’t at the right place at the right time.”

Soon enough, Richie will be in the “right place.”