Los Lobos

Los Lobos, one of the few contemporary Hispanic acts to be recognized by the English-speaking pop audience. membership:David Hidalgo, lead voc, gtr. (b. Los Angeles, Oct. 6, 1954); Cesar Rosas, lead voc, gtr. (b. Los Angeles, Sept. 26, 1954); Conrad Lozano, bs., voc. (b. Los Angeles, March 21, 1951); Luis “Louie” Perez, drm., gtr., voc.(b. Los Angeles, Jan. 29, 1953). Steve Berlin, sax, kybd. (b. Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 14, 1955) joined in 1983.

Along with X, one of the most challenging rock bands to emerge from the early-1980s punk scene in Los Angeles, the Mexican-American group Los Lobos has recorded several intriguing, eclectic albums that ranged from R&B to country, from rock and roll to blues, from nortena (“Tex- Mex”) to corridas (ballads) and traditional Mexican folk music, using both rock and traditional instruments. Achieving a musical mélange comparable to only the Meters and the Grateful Dead, Los Lobos broke through commercially with 1987’s cover of Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba,” the first Spanish-sung song to top the pop charts. Yet interestingly, their brilliant and engaging 1992 Kiko album remained a decidedly underground hit, despite widespread critical acclaim.

Formed in East Los Angeles in November 1973 by Mexican-American graduates of Garfield High, Los Lobos performed traditional Mexican folk music on acoustic instruments for nearly eight years before taking up electric instruments in 1981. Then they started writing songs (principally by Hidalgo and Perez) and playing local colleges, community events, and clubs. Having recorded two albums of Mexican folk music on their own New Vista Productions label, Los Lobos sent a demonstration tape to Phil Al vin of the Blasters. They received their first break by opening for the Blasters at the Whisky a Go-Go, and Alvin later convinced the punk-rock label Slash to sign the group. Their first recording, a seven-song EP entitled And a Time to Dance was coproduced by the Blasters’ Steve Berlin and T-Bone Burnett and released in 1983, the year saxophonist Berlin joined the group. The EP included the traditional folk song “Anselma,” which won a Grammy Award.

Opening for acts such as The Clash and Public Image Ltd., Los Lobos garnered excellent reviews for their exciting, wide-ranging performances.

Los Lobos’s first full-length album, How Will the Wolf Survive?, won outstanding critical reviews—called one of the best albums of the year—and featured the minor hit title song (covered by Way Ion Jennings in 1986) and “A Matter of Time” (both written by Hidalgo and Perez), and a cover of the 1951 Peppermint Harris R&B hit “I Got Loaded.” Los Lobos performed at a wide variety of venues in support of the album, and various members recorded with Ry Cooder, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1986. Their 1987 album By the Light of the Moon included the socially conscious “One Time One Night” (a minor country hit) and “Is That All There Is?” by Hidalgo and Perez and Rosas’s “Set Me Free (Rosa Lee).”

During 1987, at the behest of the family of Ritchie Valens, Los Lobos recorded eight songs for the film biography of Valens, La Bamba. The best-selling soundtrack album yielded two hits for Los Lobos, with cover versions of Valens’s “La Bamba” and “Come On, Let’s Go.” Typecast by some as an oldies band, Los Lobos sought to dispel the notion by recording La Pistola y el Corazon (The Pistol and the Heart), an entire album of traditional Mexican and South American folk songs sung in Spanish and performed on acoustic instruments. The album won the group another Grammy award.

Los Lobos began recording their next album, The Neighborhood, in 1989. Released in 1990, the album included “Take My Hand,” Hidalgo’s “Emily,” and Rosas’s “I Walk Alone.” Their next, Kiko, was hailed as a masterpiece, yet it failed to sell in large quantities. The rich, haunting, mature album featured the ominous title song as well as “Dream in Blue,” “Saint Behind the Glass,” “That Train Don’t Stop Here,” and Rojas’s “Wake Up Dolores.” Performing and recording with the side group the Latin Playboys, Hidalgo and Perez contributed six original songs to the La Jolla Playhouse production of Bertolt Brecht’s Good Woman of Szechuan in 1994. In 1995 Music for Little People Records, distributed by Warner Bros., issued Los Lobos’s children’s album, Papa’s Dream.

Discography

los lobos:And a Time to Dance (mini) (1983); How Will the Wolf Survive? (1984); By the Light of the Moon (1987); La Bamba (soundtrack; 1987); La Pistola y el Corazon (1988); The Neighborhood (1990); Kiko (1992); Just Another Band from East LA.: A Collection (1993); Colossal Head (1996). children’s album:Papa’s Dream (1995). the latin playboys:The Latin Playboys (1994).

—Brock Helander