Chris Morris - Los Lobos: Dream in Blue

AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES

Peter Blackstock and David Menconi, Editors

Los

Lobos

DREAM IN BLUE

BY CHRIS MORRIS

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

AUSTIN

All photos Joel Aparicio

Copyright 2015 by Chris Morris

All rights reserved

First edition, 2015

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:

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University of Texas Press

P.O. Box 7819

Austin, TX 78713-7819

http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morris, Chris (Music journalist), author.

Los Lobos : dream in blue / by Chris Morris.

pages cm (American music series)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-292-74823-1 (cloth : alkaline paper)

ISBN 978-1-4773-0853-0 (library e-book)

ISBN 978-1-4773-0852-3 (nonlibrary e-book)

1. Lobos (Musical group) 2. Rock groupsCaliforniaEast Los Angeles. I. Title. II. Series: American music series (Austin, Tex.)

ML421.L65M67 2015

782.42164092'2dc23

2015004314

doi: 10.7560/748231

For my sons,

Max and Zane

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Cinco de Mayo

In 2012, Los Lobos were granted their own festival in Los Angeles. Under the auspices of the Nederlander Organization, the national concert venue and promotion firm, the East L.A. band mounted their first daylong event at the Greek Theatre, a spacious, verdant amphitheater carved out of a hillside above the citys Los Feliz neighborhood, many miles from L.A.s East Side, where the band was born and bred.

It was the natural location for the show. The Lobos had enjoyed a history with the Greek dating back to July 1985, when the bandyet to make a big national mark, but already a much-loved local institutionmade the first of several summertime appearances there. These events were among the most unforgettable concerts of the mid-80s. East L.A. homeboys and homegirls poured into the Greek in their finery, rubbing elbows with locals from the rock scene who had witnessed Los Lobos swift rise through the ranks of the Hollywood rootspunk axis. It was the biggest party in town.

Weve always had a pretty special relationship with the Greek, Steve Berlin, the bands saxophonistkeyboardist, told me the week before the first festival. They were very kind to us over the years, and weve had some pretty special nights there.

Appropriately, the 2012 Los Lobos Festival was presented on Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican national holiday celebrating the countrys improbable victory over invading French forces at the Battle of Puebla on that date in 1862. The event at the Greek dovetailed naturally with the customary citywide fiesta thrown by L.A.s enormous Mexican American population.

The inaugural 2012 festival, staged under crystalline skies on a summery day, was very much a family affair. In the afternoon, on the terrace outside the amphitheater, the acts playing on a small jury-rigged stage included the 44s, a bluesy rock unit that included drummer Jason Lozano, son of Los Lobos bassist Conrad Lozano, and David Kid Ramos, formerly guitarist for the Fabulous Thunderbirds; Ollin, a folkpunk act that served as the house band for Evangeline, the Queen of Make-Believe, a local multimedia show based on the Lobos songbook that premiered a week later; and La Santa Cecilia, a young East L.A. group that drew heavily on the Lobos original folk model. (The latter act would break through to wider recognition with their first full-length studio album, Treinta Dias, which won a Grammy Award in 2014 for Best Latin Rock, Urban, or Alternative Album.)

It was old home week on the main stage as well. The crowd was warmed up by Mariachi El Bronx, a brawny unit fusing traditional mariachi (the Mexican string and horn ensemble style) and punk rock, which included bajo sexto player Vince Hidalgo, son of Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo, among their colorfully costumed members, and X, the legendary punk band with whom the Lobos had shared bills in their earliest days in Hollywood.

When Los Lobos came out of the wings in the gloaming to robust cheers, they arrayed themselves before the crowd in their traditional onstage positions. To the audiences far left stood Cesar Rosas, the bands southpaw singerguitarist, still the eminent Chicano hipster, his eyes masked by omnipresent Ray-Bans, a neat goatee on his chin; he remains the taciturn groups default master of ceremonies, and introduced most of the songs with a quip or an exclamation, acknowledging applause with Gracias very much. To Rosass left shoulder was Conrad Lozano, the most animated of the players, who bounced on the balls of his feet as he plucked his bass or monstrous guitarron, grinning broadly. Formerly seated atop the drum chair to the rear (now occupied by the boyish touring drummer Enrique Bugs Gonzalez), the small, almost doll-like Louie Prez now commanded center stage, playing guitar and, on the traditional numbers that invariably grace the groups set, a variety of acoustic stringed instruments. Next to him was his broad, moon-faced songwriting partner David Hidalgo; ever a retiring and almost bashful figure, he kept his onstage patter to the barest minimum, content to dazzle the audience with his soaring vocals and his virtuosity on guitar, accordion, and an arsenal of stringed instruments. Finally, Steve Berlin stood behind an electronic keyboard at the audiences right, his battery of reed and wind instruments on stands behind him; the new kid, the Jewish saxophonist from Philly who joined Los Lobos in 1983, is so perfectly assimilated into the group that he might now be mistaken for an East Side homie, with his head crowned with a felt cap, eyes covered like Cesars with dark glasses, a long, pointed beard on his chin.

Old friends and fans joined the main attraction during their headlining stint, which commenced with an acoustic mini-set. Titian-haired Americana goddess Neko Case dueted with David Hidalgo on One Time One Night. Another Americana icon, the Texas-based Chicano singersongwriter Alejandro Escovedo, fronted the group on his compositions Rosalie and Rebel Kind, a staple for his 80s band the True Believers, road mates of Los Lobos in their first days of touring. Accordionist Flaco Jimenezthe seventy-three-year-old star of norteo (TexMex border) music and David Hidalgos principal inspiration on the instrumentand guitarist Max Baca of the contemporary border music combo (or conjunto) Los Tex maniacs backed Cesar Rosas on the hip-grinding Latin bolero (ballad) Volver, Volver. Singersongwriterguitarist Dave Alvin, whose group the Blasters had introduced the Lobos to L.A. punkdom, performed his composition 4th of July, a number he had first recorded as a member of X, with Jimenez behind him. Dave remained onstage to back his brother Phil on a rocking version of the Blasters neo-rockabilly classic Marie Mariesung in Spanish, of course, as Maria, Mariathat filled the aisles with dancing fans.

As ever, it was a straight-ahead performance by the stars of the show. The enduring elements of a Los Lobos show are its lack of crowd-pandering or superfluous flash, and its fundamental gravity. Save for Rosass ad-libs and the occasional interjection by the ever-reticent Hidalgo, the coolly undemonstrative group has always left it to their considerable musicianshipespecially to Hidalgos multi-instrumental virtuosity and Rosass fret firepowerto carry the show. In ways both visual and musical, they resemble a group of 60s-era elders with whom they shared stages in the 1980s: the Grateful Dead. A Los Lobos performance is invariably fun, but there is simultaneously never any doubt that the band members are