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Wed July 21st 8:00 PM
Danny Gokey
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Free Concert: Los Lobos
and successful as Los Lobos. The band has notched a number one single, won three Grammys, and sold millions of records. They’ve shared the stage with acts as varied as Dylan, The Clash, and U2. And they’ve received tremendous critical acclaim—from their major label debut, How Will the Wolf Survive? (which made Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time) to their most recent effort, 2006’s The Town and The City (which drew four-star reviews in Rolling Stone, Mojo, The Independent and many others). Released in 2006, The Town and The City is hard proof that Los Lobos are more vital, valid, and creatively potent than ever. The record leans heavily on the theme of immigration, treating physical and emotional movement as fundamental to the human condition. “A trip round their neighbourhood becomes an epic voyage through exotic Americana, sly funk, and raw blues, writes London’s Daily Mirror. “It documents a people’s history as potently as Bob Marley’s Exodus. The Town and The City was hailed the band’s best work since 1992’s Kiko, and Metacritic.com scored it the tenth best-reviewed album of 2006. Los Lobos’ own journey started in 1973, when David Hidalgo (vocals, guitar, and pretty much anything with strings), Louie Perez (drums, vocals, guitar), Cesar Rosas (vocals, guitar), and Conrad Lozano (bass, vocals, guitarrón) were still roaming the halls of East L.A.’s Garfield High. After graduation they made their bones playing souped-up Mexican folk music in restaurants and at parties. By the early eighties, however, they’d tapped into L.A.’s burgeoning punk and college rock scenes, landing on bills with bands like the Circle Jerks, Public Image Ltd., and the Blasters, whose saxophonist, Steve Berlin, would eventually leave the group to join Los Lobos, cementing the line-up that still holds today. In 1984, having recently signed with a division of Warner Bros., they brought home a Grammy for Best Mexican-American performance. That year also saw the release of How Will the Wolf Survive? Co-produced by Berlin and T. Bone Burnett, it was a college rock sensation and Los Lobos tied with Bruce Springsteen as Rolling Stone’s Artist of the Year. The band was now a hit with the critics, but in 1987, with the release of the Ritchie Valens bio-pic, La Bamba, Los Lobos would achieve massive commercial success. Their version of Valens’ signature song climbed to the top of Billboard singles chart, and suddenly five guys who saw themselves as “just another band from East L.A. were superstars. But instead of staying in safe, commercial waters and risking being type-cast as “that band from the Ritchie Valens movie, Los Lobos followed the pop-oriented (and double platinum-selling) La Bamba soundtrack with a collection of Mexican folk songs, La Pistola Y El Corazón. Such musical about-faces have defined the band’s creative vitality and kept fans interested in seeing what would come next. Great artists challenge themselves to make the record they cannot, or should not, make. For Los Lobos, that record is 1992’s Kiko. Produced by Mitchell Froom, it sounds lush, atmospheric, and ethereal - a long way from the dirt-under-the-nails rawness typically associated with rock and blues. Writers called Kiko the band’s masterpiece, and the album dominated the “Best of the Year lists. Nearly twenty years after their formation, Los Lobos had reached a creative apex. Amazingly they’ve been able to hold fast to that hard won ground. As Rolling Stone writes, “With the exception of U2, no other band has stayed on top of its game as long as Los Lobos. In the sixteen years since Kiko, the band has won two more Grammys, released six studio albums, a boxset, a greatest hits package, and a live CD/DVD. Many of their peers have called it quits, but Los Lobos have continued to write and record and tour like a band that’s got 35 more years in them. In 2007, after supporting The Town and The City, they headed out on a semi-acoustic tour, playing traditional Latin American folk songs. After that sixteen-city jaunt, they fired up their amps and joined John Mellencamp on tour. Most recently, in the Summer of 2008, Los Lobos and Los Lonely Boys hit the road together on the nationally acclaimed and aptly named Brotherhood Tour. The big question is what is next for East L.A.’s finest? In 2009, the band will return to the studio to begin recording another collection of original tunes. What kind of album they will record is anyone’s guess, but it is safe to bet that it will be an exciting next step in the evolution of these prolific musicians, and one worthy of the high anticipation. |
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