Valdez was born in Orba,
Guasave Municipality,
Sinaloa. She started her music career at an early age participating in amateur competitions with songs such as "La Cigarra", "Historia de un amor", "
La Bikina", and "Leña de Pirul". Her godmother was
Amalia Mendoza, a successful singer known as "La Tariácuri", and in the early 1970s, she recorded four songs the Sinaloan city of
Los Mochis: "Besos y Copas", "Una Noche me Embriagué", "Una Sombra", and "Amor que Muere", which earned her a reputation as a Mexican folk singer. She won the fifth
Festival de la Canción Ranchera with the song "No me pregunten por él". Valdez moved to
Los Angeles, California in 1982 and became a
US citizen. On September 17, 1985, she suffered an automobile accident that left her in a wheelchair, but after a long recovery began making public appearances again. In June 2003 she suffered a
cerebral hemorrhage and fell into a
coma for 50 days. Her last show was in
Nogales, Sonora. She spent her last days in a
persistent vegetative state in a hospital in
Coronado, California, where she died on 19 June 2016. == Works ==