Richly textured, beautifully played, brilliantly produced, Los Lobos records sound fantastic. And that is before you get to the songwriting of Hidalgo and Perez, with its highly visual quality and classic Latino-Americana feel. The results are very organic. Best rock band in L.A. And, quite possibly, the US of A.
Words and curation by Keith, “Wolves” cover in Jaime Hernandez style, by Mick Clarke (the geniuses)
The music streaming platforms claim to have music discovery solved, largely through data. That’s incorrect though. Music discovery isn’t really data driven - but it might be information driven.
I really discovered the music of East L.A. legends Los Lobos through David Hidalgo’s guitar work on Suzanne Vega’s 1992 album 99.9 F. His playing blew me away and that guitar sound was a key element to 99.9 F being such a change of direction for Vega, too. Once I’d checked the personnel on the CD sleeve notes (remember those) and clocked Hidalgo, I went over to the Los Lobos catalogue and saw their most recent release had been earlier that same year, entitled Kiko. I bought Kiko on CD, loved it (because it is a work of genius) and then left it there for many, many years. The next encounter was Tin Can Trust, released exactly 10 years later. I bought Tin Can Trust on the strength of a review and again, it proved to be a thoroughly excellent record.
I say really discovered here because of course, I had first come across ‘Lobos’ in 1987 when they popularised Latin pop with ‘La Bamba’ (preceding Luis Fonsi’s Despacito by 30 years no less). The song bugged me at the time, so much so that I would turn the radio off when it came on (I was a kid rocker). Funny that La Bamba turned out to be nothing like a true representation of Los Lobos, but over 30 years later has been the band’s only hit single, contributing to making them one of the most misunderstood rock bands of all time. At least outside of their native North America.
Back to information, the connection between Vega’s 99.9F° and Kiko is that they are both produced by Mitchell Froom (whom Suzanne later married of course). Froom was one half of the most innovative production team operating throughout the 90s, with engineer Tchad Blake being the other half (the two had a full-time partnership between ‘92 and 2002). My next musical adventure is to track down every other project those two worked on, but it’s a long and eminent list (perhaps a future playlist).
Since both Froom and Blake are geniuses, the combined effect is worthy of note for anyone interested in music and how it’s made. However, Froom and Blake only ever joined a band as full members with David Hidalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos- together they formed the experimental roots collaboration Latin Playboys, largely because their work on Kiko and Colossal Head could not fully satiate their desire to experiment. Wow.
In preparation for the Art of Longevity podcast with Steve Berlin, I had spent three weeks listening to as much of the Los Lobos catalogue as time would allow. Effectively, this experience retrained my ears. Richly textured, beautifully played, brilliantly produced and engineered, Los Lobos records sound fantastic. And that is before you get to the songwriting of Hidalgo and Perez, with its highly visual quality (yes, cinematic) and classic Americana feel. The results are very organic and deeply immersive.
It’s mystifying in many ways the band are not much bigger than they are (circa. 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify when I last looked) and indeed the band has very occasionally intimated the same thing. In an interview with for Paul Zollo’s “Songwriters on Songwriting” Louis Perez said ‘I wish we sold more records’. But, when I asked Steve Berlin whether their lack of commercial respect bothers the band, he gave me short shrift:
“Not at all. The main thing for us is longevity and being able to do what we do and to answer to nobody other than ourselves, we have such gratitude for that. We have no obligation other than to move forward with our music”.
I guess approaching 50 years of making music together and paying the bills from doing it is success enough. And we listeners get to benefit as well. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to adjust back to listening to a lot of modern records, which sound a bit ‘thin’ by comparison.
Anyway, if you happen to be barrelling along Sunset Boulevard, then head East for a change, and keep on going until you reach the suburbs of East L.A. and Phillipe’s “Famous French Sandwich” restaurant, and crank up this playlist. You might not get your sandwich free but you’ll get to experience Los Lobos in their element. Or, you can just listen and see it in those pictures in your head.
Steve Berlin joined Keith on The Art of Longevity podcast listen here.