Echo Sparks

Echo Sparks was formed in 1923, deep in the mines of Cerro Gordo near the shores of Owens Lake. D.A. fashioned a cigar-box guitar, Cindy sacrificed her only washtub for a bass, and C.C. honed her harmonies with the coyotes. Soon, the shanties were a-shakin’ with their fine, foot-stompin’ harmonies.

D.A. Valdez was born during the strife and bloodshed of the Mexican Revolution, but not anywhere actually near it. He entered this life in the back room of the Fender guitar factory in Fullerton, CA. He was playing guitar while still at his mother’s breast.

Cindy Ballreich was the daughter of Dust Bowl refugees that fled to the San Joaquin Valley. With her first bass strapped to her back, she hopped a freight train to the orange groves of old South Cali and never looked back.

C.C. was a barber’s daughter in an old Cali dairy town, and she sang in the church choir every Sunday. But milking cows and sweeping hair couldn’t satisfy her wanderlust, and the lights of Los Angeles shone brightly. However, her navigational skills left much to be desired and she found herself in Old El Toro instead.