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The entertainment world is full of stories that can vary from heart-wrenching to unbelievable and beyond. This is the story of one such journey taken by a teenager.
She learned how to play the piano and began publicly singing with a band at the age of 13.
At the age of 14, she penned a song that outsold Elvis.
Her name was Rosie Mendez Hamlin, and she made music history when she wrote one of the iconic songs of the doo wop era- Angel Baby.
The song was about her first boyfriend while attending Mission Bay High School in San Diego, where she lived at the time.
She formed a group which became known as Rosie and the Originals.
At 15, she and the other band members found the only recording studio within 100 miles of San Diego. It was in San Marcos, which was roughly 40 miles away.. It was owned by an airplane mechanic, who revamped his hangar to include a recording studio.
After recording the song there, they took the master to a Kresge department store in downtown San Diego and convinced the manager to play it in the music listening booth in the store.
It became very popular. So popular a scout from Highland records heard it and offered a contract to the group. However, Rosie was not credited as the writer on the contract, as she was only 15. The eldest member of the group, David Ponce, received credit for writing the song.
This was about to unleash a saga that stretched on for many years.
The story will conclude in part two.
Everything else is just history
