After terrorizing small clubs around California in 1982, it was time for Los Lobos to take steps to find a record label to move forward. Their energy onstage was overwhelming, delivering a mix of rock & roll-driven originals and Mexican-American anthems. Lobos’ live shows felt like a five-day fiesta of unadulterated joy. Watching them tap into something deeper than just music was a constant reminder of how certain sounds evoke a neural urgency, sending listeners into blissful reveries of days gone by and nights to come. It is the very reason music is our ultimate language of life.
Los Lobos had self-released their earliest recordings in the 1970s, but considering Los Angeles was on fire with all kinds of new music and inquisitive A&R directors, there was plenty of room for the East L.A. marauders to find a proper home. At the top of the list of companies that prided themselves on diversity, Slash Records was golden. Perched above a drug store on Beverly Boulevard right down the street from El Coyote restaurant in mid-town, the company was no stranger to musical spelunking. Los Lobos had been playing shows with such Slashsters as The Blasters, X and others, so it was a seamless fit for the label to offer them a recording contract.
For their first release on Slash, it was decided an EP would be the perfect calling card. It could be a chance to introduce what was basically an unknown band to the world at large, and with four original songs and six rollicking covers, it gave Los Lobos an irresistible sonic edge. Produced by T-Bone Burnett and Steve Berlin (the wailing saxophonist was not yet a full-fledged member of the band), the appropriately-titled “…and a time to dance” threw a wide net on a curious audience, announcing there was a formidable aggregation that had come to kill. The band’s sure-fire live favorite, “Anselma,” was a whiplash invitation to mayhem, and when it won the 1983 Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance, the party was permanently on. Los Lobos became an unrelenting source of pride for Los Angeles, East and West, and created their own genre in modern rock. And that on the EP they also included the instant contemporary classics of Richie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go” and Flaco Jimenez’s “A Te Dejo in San Antonio” proved the quartet knew where they came from. In ’83 it felt like the world was starting to crack open a bit wider. While the politics were being dominated by the California Republican in the White House, in reality America was beginning to hear a call of openness and divine inspiration. Something had to give, and it made perfect sense that music would, once again, lead the charge.
In 1984, through sheer luck and a cosmic gift, I became Slash’s publicist. They say in life that the truest test of a righteous path is one that lets you follow your joy. I had definitely hit the mother lode. Working with some of the most exciting artists in America, going up the stairs every morning at Slash was an instant rush. Music would be blaring from one of the small rooms, whether it was Rank & File’s new release or demos from the Violent Femmes, and the dedicated staff was actually happy to see each other, even if there was just a half-dozen of us. We all knew what we’d been given, and weren’t about to destroy such a wonderful chemistry. One day that summer an unlabeled white cassette appeared on my desk, and when I put it in the deck to play, my jaw quickly dropped open several inches. The first song was an unbridled rocker that felt like a car careening downhill with no brakes. “Don’t Worry Baby” went straight for the skies from the first note, without even thinking about slowing down. Singer and writer Cesar Rosas had hit on the magic formula for modern rock & roll, propelled by the band’s strangle-hold attack and saxophonist’s Steve Berlin saxual assault on the soul. And that was just the first song.
The album, HOW WILL THE WOLF SURVIVE, had gathered every essence of becoming an American treasure, and let Los Lobos show exactly what made them unequaled. It’s the kind of collection of songs where one right after the other ups the ante of what life’s gracious possibilities can be, and gives a peak at the pudding that really lies at the center of all our bodies. I’ve only heard a dozen or so collections of anything like it: you know immediately this might just be the best music ever recorded, at least in the present tense. Every part of your mind races into overdrive thanking the higher powers you are being allowed to be in on the action. Really. As songs like “A Matter of Time,” “Corrido #1,” “Serenata Nortena,” “I Got Loaded” and “Evangeline” roared from my petite speakers, they took my breath away. In fact, it made it hard to breath, and I started thinking maybe I should start the drive to nearby Cedars-Sinai hospital and hit the emergency room while I still could. Then came the last song, David Hidalgo and Louie Perez’s “Will the Wolf Survive.” I knew in an electric flash that not only had timelessness entered the building, but so had a call to arms for music lovers everywhere. It was a rallying song for all who believed that music is our savior. Maybe our only savior. For now, there could be nothing else.
When the album was released, fortunately the world agreed with my initial reaction. It’s a blessed day in the neighborhood when critics and civilians agree, and for Los Lobos this time around perfect harmony between those two factions was the theme of the day. In fact, Rolling Stone magazine named HOW WILL THE WOLF SURVIVE the Best Album of 1984, and the band became a touchstone for American music. Cesar Rosas, David Hidalgo, Louie Perez, Conrad Lozano and now full-member Steve Berlin were carrying the flag for all the aggregations who dug down deep and listened to their higher selves in what they wrote and played. In fact, Los Lobos became more than just a group. They became leaders of what was being called roots music, but what in reality was more of a heaven-sent sound. It was up to them and all those in their rock & roll army to lead the charge away from corporate rock and head back into the field to fight the good fight. Alternative music and Americana weren’t far around the corner.
But for Los Lobos, that determination would soon be tested. The band had been booked to play a series of shows along the Texas-Mexico border, where they hadn’t been heard yet, opening for a teeny-bopper group called La Mafia. No one was quite sure who’d come up with this brain-twister of a double-bill, but off Los Lobos went to open the tour in Laredo, and I was right along with them. But not before tour manager Bondo (no last name needed) peeled off a hundred dollar bill in Austin and asked me if would head to San Antonio and find a certain guitar maker and buy his homemade strings for Hidalgo’s big bajo sexto. No problem, because it would give me a chance to track down my Texas soul brother Doug Sahm, and hopefully say hello to Flaco Jimenez. San Antonio was a whole other enchilada when it came to American cities, and old musician friends like El Pinquino, Rocky Morales, Jack “the Barber,” Charlie McBurney, the Jalapeño Kid, Sauce Gonzalez and maybe even a Esteban “El Parache” Jordan sighting always made the town come alive with wild merriment and unrivaled sounds. Soon enough I was roaring down I-35 heading for the border and Lord knows what lay ahead.
The first Los Lobos-La Mafia show was in a corrugated tin warehouse. It felt about 40 degrees inside, and it seemed like I was the only person in the crowd over 18. Still, Los Lobos had no fear. They came out, roared into “Don’t Worry Baby,” “Come on Let’s Go” and a batch of other knee-poppers. Unfortunately, the kids just stood and stared. I may have heard a clap or two, but not much more. Lobos might as well have been playing Martian music. It just didn’t fit into what La Mafia’s acolytes have come to hear. But the Angelenos finished their set, packed up and headed off for McAllen to try again. Same thing there, as well as the third night in Brownsville. Fortunately, Lobos veered off of the tour and headed for a small club in Corpus Christi to try their hand on their own. The Corpus radio station had been blasting “Don’t Worry Baby” for weeks, and the sold-out house was practically drooling to drop the hammer and go crazy. The crowd was so thick you couldn’t stir them with a stick, and by the time Lobos’ roared into their hit single, it felt like Lobomania had been unleashed. A good ol’ boy of six-foot-six and 250 pounds of Texas brawn slid up to me, and asked me who the band was. I told him, and he gave me a quizzical smile and said, “Well, I heard their song on the radio and it reminded me of that hun’ert mile-per-hour n….r music I used to love. I figgered I better get down here and see what’s goin’ on…” I quickly headed for the other side of the club. Maybe a chicken move on my part, but the man had a hundred pounds on me and I couldn’t see getting stomped into Gulf Coast mush that night. I had work to do.
For the next three years Los Lobos went on a tear all across America, and even in cities around the world. There was something so unique about how they approached the music of their Mexican-American heritage, and mixed it with early rock & roll and modern tales of challenge and redemption. It really did start to feel something like a musical religion, one born on the streets of East L.A. and that spread into Hollywood and beyond. In 1987 it was time for a follow-up album, and when BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON came in it felt like Lobos had done it once again. “One Time One Night” had all the passionate pathos of the best of HOW WILL THE WOLF SURVIVE. There were plenty of other songs on the album that spoke directly to the best part of ourselves, and offered solace in the strength needed to stay the course.
By then, I had become a creative services writer at Warner Bros. Records, which was distributing Slash’s releases. For the new album, I wrote an advertisement for the back cover of Billboard magazine that simply said THE YEAR OF THE WOLF. It just felt right for the band and where they were, and also held promise this would be their year again. Little did I know how right I’d be, but not necessarily for an accurate reason. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON just did not catch fire. In the record business, there’s always a million reasons why something doesn’t hit big, whether it’s timing, the label, the songs, the world, the economy or even the alignment of the stars. Everybody usually gets the blame, but there’s no way to change it. By mid-year not everything was grooving in Lobosland. And that’s when it happened. The group recorded the title song for the new film “La Bamba,” and before you would say “vamonos” Los Lobos had a Number One single in America, were selling-out large venues and became world famous for their new screaming version of Richie Valens’ ’50s classic. There was no way to have seen it coming at the start of the year, but indeed 1987 actually became The Year of the Wolf. We were all thrilled for the band, and platinum record plaques were passed around to the Warner Bros. staff like candy. The popularity and commercial success were the same, whether they wrote the song or not. It set Los Lobos up for a career that is still vibrant today. Onward through the smog, I say, and don’t look back.
In as classy an act as I can recall in the rock & roll business, for the multi-platinum follow-up Los Lobos went back to their earliest roots and recorded the acoustic gem LA PISTOLA Y EL CORAZON. Maybe it was a way to deflate sales expectations of having another “La Bamba,” but more probably it was something they had wanted to do for years and now that they had the clout of a big-seller under their belt Lobos could pretty much do whatever they wanted. It was a beautiful and timeless collection of songs, one that will surely live forever, and let the band that once called themselves “just another band from East L.A.” take their fans on an unexpected excursion into another side of their musical life.
It had been 30 years since LA PISTOLA was released when I went to the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles to see Los Lobos three months ago. I had crept into the publicity department at Warner Bros. in ’88, and worked with the band for many more albums. It was always an honor to hold that job. The way Lobos can write everlasting songs and then perform them with the kind of spirit that calls in the angels is nothing short of divine. Dozens and dozens of live shows proved that to me through all these years, and when I stood in front of the stage at the Nokia and the band strolled out my heart was jumping around like a caught catfish. And then there it was: the opening chords of “Will the Wolf Survive.” It was as majestic as anything I’ve ever heard, and also felt like a song Los Lobos was playing in their backyard just for me. Chillbumps sprouted up and down my body, and I could feel tears running down my face. Sometimes the music of the spheres opens up on us, like a summer shower, and there is no other way to react except to give in to the cosmos and thank whoever you can find inside yourself for allowing life to last this long. Surely there is a reason for such a gift, and at the same time it is likely we will never discover what it is. What we do come to understand is so often reasons are overrated. Better to give in to the unexplainable and let the magic wash over us like a fountain of eternal gratitude. And then start to dance.
Bill Bentley