Tag Archives: Los Lobos

Rumel Fuentes: Americana Lost and Found

Rumel Fuentes/Arhoolie Records

In the American border town of Eagle Pass in the Rio Grande Valley, Rumel Fuentes was born in 1943. Attending the University of Texas in Austin in the ’60s, he was one of the Chicano movement’s brightest singer-songwriters, using his music to speak out against injustice to his people as well as to voice his pride in being a Mexican-American. He appeared briefly in Les Blank’s 1979 documentary about border music, Chulas Fronteras, where he sang a Doug Sahm song titled “Chicano” along with the norteño group Los Pinguinos Del Norte. The group’s version of his song ‘Mexico-Americano” appeared on the soundtrack and has since been covered by many others.

Arhoolie Records (now part of the Smithsonian Folkways family of labels) should be acknowledged for its dedication to the preservation and vast catalog of Mexican-American music. In 2009 they released Fuentes’ solo album, Corridos of the Chicano Movement. Recorded in two sessions by Chris Strachwitz, the owner of Arhoolie, it features Fuentes with two musician friends in the tiny living room of their student flat in Austin in 1972, and at home at Eagle Pass in 1975. Strachwitz apologizes in the liner notes for not releasing these recordings during Fuentes’ lifetime.

Nearly a decade before Corridos, the play By the Hand of the Father featured “México-Americano” in its spoken word and musical telling of the journey of a 20th-century Mexican-American father. Premiering in Los Angeles in 2000, it featured original music by Alejandro Escovedo as well as Cesar Rosas, Rosie Flores, Rueben Ramos, and Pete Escovedo. A soundtrack was released in 2002.

In 2005 Los Lobos released Acoustic en Vivo, featuring live versions of Mexican folk songs, similar in content to their Grammy Award-winning 1988 album, La Pistola y el Corazón. Included was “México-Americano,” which they performed at Woodstock 1999 and was captured on video.

In the last two years, as the political climate has shifted and Americans of Hispanic origin have been demonized and victimized from the top to the bottom of the New Republican party and its media arm, Fox News, “México-Americano” has taken on new meaning and at least three new versions have been released.

“It’s a beautiful song because it identifies who we are,” Los Texmaniacs’ Josh Baca said about his band’s version in a press release for their 2018 album, Cruzando Borders. “My grandparents on my mother’s side were born and raised in Mexico and moved over here to America to better their lives. That side of my family taught me that there’s more to life than just playing the accordion … values in life, morals. And the record represents that.”

La Santa Cecilia is a Mexican-American group from Los Angeles that made their debut at SXSW in 2008. Similar to Los Lobos, their vision has been to mix the Mexican music they grew up with and the influences of American music. Band members are Jose “Pepe” Carlos, Miguel “Oso” Ramirez, Alex Bendaña, and Marisol “La Marisoul” Hernandez, who handles the lead vocals. They are activists who have addressed immigration and environmental causes, they took home a Grammy a few years ago, and they have released a half-dozen albums. This video is from 2017’s Amar Y Vivar and is a collaboration with The Rebel Cats, a rockabilly band from Mexico City.

In an interview with Billboard magazine, Ramirez said: “We love this song because it expresses how we feel about being Mexican-American, bi-cultural. To have us, Mexican-American artists, play that song with a rockabilly band from Mexico proves that the border can be obsolete and meaningless culturally.”

On a Saturday morning inside a Walmart in El Paso, 13 Americans, eight Mexicans, and one German were killed, and 26 people were wounded. They were as old as 90 and as young as 15. The killer drove 600 miles from his home before entering the store. News reports say he posted a document filled with white supremacist language and racist hatred aimed at immigrants and Latinos, saying he opposes “race mixing” and encourages immigrants to return to their home countries. The ideas and rhetoric of the 45th president of the United States, who has elevated his racist beliefs and given white nationalists a voice, were clearly an inspiration for the terrorist.

I’ll close with one more version of Rumel Fuentes’ song: This was performed in Washington, DC, at the Kennedy Center this past June. Eugene Rodriguez, Lucina Rodriguez, Fabiola Trujillo, and Emiliano Rodriguez are Los Cenzontles. The men were born in California, the women immigrated from Mexico when they were youngsters, and all joined the group when they turned 15. The core members also operate Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy in San Pablo, California, which has been training area youth in traditional Mexican music, dance, and crafts since 1994. Since they don’t sell drugs, participate in any crimes, or rape anyone, I must assume they are the good people.

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Have You Heard Any Good Music Lately?

A few decades ago, when I ran a record store in California, I must have been asked that question a few hundred times a day. They weren’t usually the first words spoken by a new customer, since ascertaining the whereabouts and accessibility of our bathroom and confirming if we would accept personal checks were the top two. But after a cursory look at the waterfalls and end caps with the signage advertising sales and new releases, and a flip or two through the bins, most people would work up the courage to come to the counter, or engage some employee who was restocking the shelves out on the floor, and pop the question.

Anybody who has ever worked in a record store will tell you it was the best moment of the day. That question meant we got to do what we loved to do best: talk about music we knew about, that you’d never heard of. Of course there was a trick to getting it right. You didn’t want to pitch Ralph Stanley to the guy who was holding a dozen used classical albums by a specific Hungarian composer, nor make a rookie mistake like I once did when I handed Mike Love’s solo album of cover songs to Brian Wilson, who smacked it hard, grumbled, and stormed out. If you were going to discuss or suggest something, you needed to know your audience, have some idea of what you were talking about, and be able to stand your ground two days later when they brought it back and you had to lay the “no refund/no exchange” policy on them. A thankless job it was, indeed.

These days, when I want to find out about new music or even older titles that I’ve skipped over, there aren’t many places left to go nor many people to talk to. There are about a half-dozen websites in addition to this one that I visit regularly, to pick up threads of news about new artists and releases. I use You Tube and Spotify more than any other streaming services, wandering about usually late at night, like a prospector panning for gold. Living in a big city allows me access to a number of college and public radio stations, where left-of-center music is served up. And hitting just three festivals per summer exposes me to about a hundred acts over the course of a couple of weekends.

But there is something quite sad to this mission of a mostly singular search and discovery, and it makes me recall that there was once a forum over at No Depression dot com that endured for years. It was probably the most popular community forum topic and it asked the simple question about what you were listening to. People responded and shared almost daily. I thought it was a great service to the roots music community, but things change and it’s now hard to find. It was just sort of an old fashioned notion — an online bulletin board that went the way of AOL dial-up. Still, I sort of miss it.

So in the spirit and memory of that old fashioned community forum, where I met many good people, learned an awful lot, and expanded my musical horizons, here’s a brief list of what I’ve been listening to in the past couple of weeks. There’s some old, some new. Some borrowed, some blues. Should the spirit move you, head over to No Depression where this is posted, share your own list in the comments box, and you’ll get notified when others do the same. Then you too can answer the question: Have you heard any good music lately?

Joan Shelley – Over and Even: I loved her earlier collaboration with Daniel Martin Moore, and he engineered this one. Nathan Salsburg plays guitar. Will Oldham and Glen Detinger provide harmonies. It’s a Louisville thing.

Ola Belle Reed: Dust-To-Digital’s August-released book about her life comes with a two-disc sampler. Unbelievable.

Daniel Romano – If I’ve Only One Time Askin’: If you love your late-1950s, early-’60s classic country shaken and stirred with a touch of Gram Parsons, this is for you.

Nikki Talley – Out from the Harbor: I know, there are seven million singer-songwriters out on the road these days, but this woman delivers the type of North Carolina country you wished your local radio station played.

Meg Baird – Don’t Weigh Down the Light: A Philadelphian moves to San Francisco and mixes her Appalachian-style roots guitar work with ethereal vocals and an electric collaborator to create a post-Espers flashback.

The Kennedys – West: Pete and Maura bring out this duo album as well as two solo efforts. Expect more Byrds-like jingle-jangle guitar and their great, close harmonies. Catch them live if you can.

Los Lobos: I’m immersed in their entire catalog, which could take several years to get through. I’ve got acoustic En Vivo, Kiko, and the new Gates of Gold in heavy rotation now. And a tip of the sombrero to Los Super Seven — a great side project.

Oxford American Southern Music Samplers: Blessings to my friend in England who sent me his complete collection, going back to 1999. Most are sold out, but head over to the OA website and sign up to reserve this year’s sampler, which focuses on the music of Georgia. While you’re there, you can grab the few others still in print.

Okay, you’re it.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

Image by Joe Haupt/Creative Commons License

On America, Xenophobia and Los Lobos: Dream In Blue

Today in America, there is a demagogue who spends much of his time whipping pale-faced crowds into a frenzy of fear and hate with xenophobic speeches that have been designed to distort reality. That reality is that we are a nation of many colors that has nourished and embraced multi-cultural influences and diversity for generations. Against a backdrop of nonstop news-tainment that assaults our senses on a daily basis and fogs the political landscape with opinions and analyses from pundits that create much ado about nothing comes a new book about a band of musicians who have spent over four decades making music that has helped to break down the walls between us. Like a pin stuck in a balloon that releases a rush of hot air, Los Lobos: Dream In Blue by Chris Morris is a riveting historical narrative that speaks as much to the American experience as it does to the music.

Morris is a respected journalist, disc jockey, and ethnomusicologist whom I’ve known since the mid-’80s, when he was covering the independent music beat for Billboard magazine. He is an eyewitness to Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles’ early journey into the Hollywood club scene, and the music highways and byways that they’ve travelled down through the years. Using their recording career as his lantern, Morris lets the story of this band be told in their own words, with the inclusion of interviews from collaborators and his own insightful observations and memories. Published this month by the University of Texas Press, it should be of interest to many that Dream In Blue is from the American Music Series whose editors are David Menconi and No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock.

Earlier this summer, on the banks of the Hudson River an hour north of Manhattan, I stood in a steady rain by the side of the stage and felt an incredible energy that Los Lobos unleashed with their afternoon set at the Clearwater Festival. It was impossible to keep still as my feet and body joined those around me in a 45-minute tribal dance of both young and old. The music they create is a language we can all speak and understand, and like using the phrase “rooted and rocked” when I describe them to the uninitiated. If you’ve seen them live, you already know they rock. But if you don’t know their story, you miss the roots.

Dream in Blue takes you back into time, until the light turns on inside your head and you understand that Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano, David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, and Steve Berlin are not simply outliers from La Raza, East of Los Angeles (though Berlin grew up in Philadelphia, as did I), but that the music they make is influenced by the same baby boomer FM radio shows and TV shows, like Ed Sullivanand Shindig, that many of us grew up with. Both Rosas and Hildalgo are quoted about what they were listening to as teens, and it mirrors my own East Coast, white-bred exposure. The Stones, the Beatles, Presley, Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Aretha, Sam and Dave, James Brown, Canned Heat, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Incredible String Band. It’s an alphabetical musical soup, the diversion — with my own Deadhead path — occurs in the early ’70s when they tapped into their Hispanic lineage at the height of the Chicano renaissance in Los Angeles and started playing folk music with traditional instruments at parties, weddings, and restaurants.

How Los Lobos navigated the move to performing electric in front of the Mohawk-hair generation, enjoyed success with the soundtrack from La Bamba, dealt with music business missteps and never stopped experimenting and collaborating is a fascinating tale. The book was a fast read for me; I was unable to put it down. Morris excels at keeping the storyline moving with equal measures of factlets and anecdotes.

The book was also successful in getting me to do something I’ve been putting off for too long: taking the time to listen to Los Lobos’ catalog again — including their new album, Gates of Gold — and watching their videos. Perhaps more important, Dream in Blue brings into sharper focus a truer narrative of what growing up and being successful in America looks like. And it sure ain’t about building walls.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Clearwater Festival, Los Lobos and The Power of Dancing In The Rain

Last weekend I went to what we might have once called a folk festival and was blown away by the power and majesty of a pure kick-ass electric set. It seems to be an affliction when you dwell in this house of roots music fandom that after a period of time you can become overwhelmed with a false notion of authenticity that only comes with acoustic instrumentation and some sort of lineage that will lead you back to Appalachia or New Orleans or Greenwich Village or any other place you can come up with that reeks of heritage and history. As I seem to have forgotten on occasion, there is a time and place to forget about trying to figure out where and when, and just shut your eyes as the music washes over you from head to tapping toes.

Perhaps its a condition of age. Or not. Given that some of the most muscular rock music comes from people now in their fifties, sixties, and seventies is not necessarily all nostalgia, no matter how it may be marketed and packaged. Although I can guess that many in the audience are in large part reacting to a trip down memory lane, it ain’t all be rice and beans. There’s got to be steak on the plate to create a meal of sonic treats that will leave you feeling satisfied and fulfilled.

What has made me slow to a crawl in going to see loud amplified music at larger venues for any genre has been the production and scale. The moves are all the same, the set list rarely changes, the cost and opportunity to acquire tickets are beyond my pay grade, and the lighting, set design, and ambiance are designed to elicit emotion. Sort of like what Disneyland does. Or a Broadway play. Or a show in Vegas. None of which are wrong or bad, but just not my thing.

It does not escape me that many of my peers think that my usual preference for a simpler form of entertainment is some sort of elitism, and that I choose to stay clear of the mainstream because of some sort of inadequacy or inability to blend. And I won’t disagree too hard with that. I don’t like to blend. And I don’t like to dance. It can be a problem.

Last Saturday morning it was cool and drizzly when I got to Clearwater, the festival known for being founded by Pete Seeger. I bypassed the big stages to start my day at a song circle that was led by a trio of talented local musicians who did a great job of setting my mood straight. I caught Mike and Ruthy’s new band, which did a great set. Kate Pierson from the B-52s was next; an odd choice, I thought, but young hipsters in long beards and flowing dresses danced like lobsters as I slouched off towards the river toward the dance tent. The Klezmatics! Who doesn’t like an accordion, fiddle, horns, and clarinet? Hundreds were dancing the hora. I stood outside with my umbrella.

I really had come to see just one band. They were scheduled mid-afternoon on the main stage, and by now the rain was steady and umbrellas were up. As festivals go, Clearwater is very orderly and neat. People come early, put out their chairs and blankets, and when they get up to wander to other areas in the park, anyone is allowed to occupy their empty spaces. But everything was soaking wet, so I made my way to the small area at stage left that is reserved for dancing.

Los Lobos. Damn. It’s been so long since I last saw them; most likely in LA during the eighties. I’ve been a fan, but hardly a fanatic. My old friend Chris Morris, who has authored their soon-to-be-released biography, has lately been posting on Facebook about them and it piqued my interest. And from the opening chords of the first song to the last, the mighty and powerful wolves played music that seeped into the cracks and crevices my soul and made my feet frolic in the puddles. Loud. Driving. A wall of amazing sound that shot out across the field like a bolt of lightening against a soundtrack of thunder. I’m screaming, dancing, and done. Like the bunny, I’m energized again.

Have about 80 minutes to spare? Probably not. But here’s the full 1999 Woodstock set that the band did. I’m going for it.

This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column. The original title was “If You Want To Dance With Me”.