Chicano rock
Chicano rock, also called Chicano fusion, is rock music performed by Mexican American groups or music with themes derived from Chicano culture. Chicano rock combines multiple music styles instead of one distinct sound. Some of these groups do not sing in Spanish at all nor use many specific Latin instruments or sounds. Chicano rock draws its identity from the cultural backgrounds of its performers and reflects a wide range of musical styles.
Overview
There are three basic styles of Chicano rock.1) The earliest Chicano rock emerged as a distinctive style of rock and roll performed by Mexican Americans from East Los Angeles and Southern California, containing themes from their cultural experience. Although the genre is broad and diverse, encompassing a variety of styles and subjects, the overarching theme of early Chicano rock is its rhythm and blues influence and incorporation of brass instruments like the saxophone and trumpet, Farfisa or Hammond B3 organ, funky basslines, and its blending of Mexican vocal styling sung in English.
A tradition of 60s Chicano rock emerges from these origins, following a devotion to the original rhythm and blues, rockabilly and rock and roll. Artists like Ritchie Valens, Sunny & the Sunglows, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Cannibal & the Headhunters, The Premiers, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs and Thee Midniters, all have made music that is heavily based on 1950s R&B, even when general trends moved away from the original sound of rock as time went by.
2) The second style of 70s Chicano rock is more open to blues music, soul music, R&B, rock music, funk, Latin music, salsa music, and jazz. Santana, Malo, War, El Chicano, Sapo and other Chicano 'Latin Rock' groups follow this approach with their fusions of R&B, jazz, and Caribbean sounds.
Later Chicano musicians who draw from rockabilly and country include Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos. These musicians also draw from traditions of Norteño music or Tejano music.
3) A third style is the 80s Latin rock, Latin R&B by Tierra, Little Joe, Little Willie G, Ralfi Pagan, Sheila E, Sugar Style, Sunny and the Sunliners and Rocky Padilla.
History
In places such as San Antonio, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area, and Dallas and Houston, Texas, the African-American audience was very important to aspiring Latino musicians, and this kept their music wedded to authentic R&B. DJ Dick Hugg and radio station KRLA 1110 played a big role in promoting this music. Chicano rock music was also influenced by the Doo-wop genre, an example being the song "Angel Baby" by the Chicana fronted group Rosie and the Originals.Don Tosti's Pachuco Boogie, recorded in 1948, was the first Chicano million-selling record, a swing tune featuring Spanish lyrics, using hipster slang called Calo. Lalo Guerrero arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1930s and found that L.A. was "bursting with ambition". Lalo and his friend captured their spirit in music by mixing swing and boogie-woogie in a cross-cultural, dialogue between African American, Anglo, and Mexican American influences.
The 1950s brought rhythm and blues and the roots of rock 'n' roll. The Mexican Americans were among the first to catch the beat and introduced a Latin flair to early rock music.
Chicano rock 'n' roll star Ritchie Valens, was a Mexican-American singer and songwriter influential in the Chicano rock movement. He recorded numerous hits during his short career, most notably the 1958 hit "La Bamba." Valens died at age 17 in a plane crash with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper on February 3, 1959. The tragedy was later immortalized as "the day the music died" in the song "American Pie."
The 1958 hit song "Tequila!" was written and sung by the saxophone player Danny Flores and performed by The Champs. Flores, who died in September 2006, was known as the "Godfather of Latino Rock."
In the early to mid-1960s, Latin music was most welcoming to the American audience in the United States because of the popularity in genres like bossa nova, bugalú, mambo. At the same time, artists did not fit neatly into the narrow confines of early rock. Trini Lopez, an artist who found success in the folk scene blended folk and pop influences. He scored a major hit with "If I Had a Hammer" in 1963. He later recorded the traditional Mexican song "Corazón de Melón". In the mid-1960s, the British Invasion took over with bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones dominated charts and shifted public taste, and this is when Lopez's upbeat music began to seem outdated.
In the 60s, there was an explosion of Chicano rock bands in East Los Angeles and Texas. Sunny & the Sunglows produced several regional hits during the 1960s but is best remembered for its 1963 Number 11 Billboard hit "Talk to Me, Talk to Me". They hold the distinction of being the first all-Mexican American group featured on American Bandstand. Their versions of "Rags to Riches" and "Out of Sight-Out of Mind" also reached the Billboard Hot 100. Another group to appear on American Bandstand as well as open for The Rolling Stones, was The Premiers with their hit rendition of a Don and Dewey song called "Farmer John". It featured the beat from the popular hit, Louie, Louie, which was in turn based on a Latino song, El Loco Cha Cha. Richard Berry, credited with writing Louie, Louie, drew inspiration to record the song after listening to an R&B rendition of El Loco Cha Cha performed by the Latin R&B group Rhythm Rockers led by Mexican-Filipino American brothers, Rick and Barry Rillera. The Rillera brothers would go on to record and perform with The Righteous Brothers.
The British Invasion challenged all American musicians, not just Chicanos. East Los Angeles witnessed a surge of creativity, and a renaissance of art, music and politics. Leading the way in music was the band Cannibal & the Headhunters, composed of five young men from the projects who recorded a national hit, "Land of a Thousand Dances," and almost overnight found themselves opening for the Beatles on the British superstars' 1965 tour. That same year, Thee Midniters hit the charts with "Whittier Blvd.," an anthem to East L.A.'s most famous street, the home of a late-night cruising scene that expressed the California car culture that Mexican Americans were making their own. Also in 1965, the Chicano led Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs released the international hit Wooly Bully which would go on to sell three million copies. Penned by frontman Domingo "Sam" Samudio, it holds the distinction of being the first American record to sell a million copies during the British Invasion era. In 1966, the Mexican American garage band ?? and the Mysterians scored a number one hit with the song 96 Tears. The Sir Douglas Quintet is said to have made the most 'English' sounding American music of the Beatlemania period. Indeed, producer Huey P. Meaux put the Sir in the group's name to emphasize the connection, but that was more a marketing change than a musical one. The Sir Douglas Quintet was from central Texas, and some of its members were Latinos. However, the group's lead singer, Doug Sahm, was not of Mexican descent. Sahm was so thoroughly immersed in Tejano culture, that he later recorded an album under the name Doug Saldaña. Despite the musician's efforts to make the group appear to have emerged from the British Invasion, scholars have noted that the group's clear Tejano influences and accordion based slowed down polka rhythms give the band a Chicano rock title.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, when civil rights and the Vietnam War were compelling issues, young Mexican American proudly called themselves Chicanos—which was once considered as a derogatory term—and many took to the streets to stand up for their rights. Chicano duo Cheech and Chong released novelty single "Basketball Jones" and hit "Earache My Eye". Bands like Tierra, Malo, Sapo, Azteca and El Chicano, created new music that "said something" about Chicano heritage and their struggles for equality and justice. In the midst of these events, Mexican-American immigrants of East L.A. were being exposed to cultural identity problems and struggles with assimilation. Chicano musicians developed a rock sound that reached mainstream audiences and was recognized for its impact on American music. They aim to pay homage to their native culture and capture the unique Chicano experience. Chicano rockers blended Mexican and American musical influences, creating a cross-cultural sound that reflected their cultural backgrounds.
The trend of Chicano rock mirrored what was happening on college campuses as well. The rise of Chicano Studies departments, which offered courses in Chicano literature, politics and culture, affected college students and musicians tremendously. Musicians rebelled against the "old world" and adopt the Mexican and Latin American styles in their own music.
Along with visual artists, activists, and audiences, the musicians of the East Los Angeles Chicano rock scene form an emergent cultural movement that speaks powerfully to present conditions. The Chicano rock scene of East Los Angeles serves as a form of unity for radical Chicanos who wish to bring forth a call to action and a site for resistance through their art. By claiming the musical style of the "old world", Chicanos are reclaiming their indigenous identity and undoing Spanish colonialism.
The Eastside scenes formed out of a variety of backgrounds and demonstrated a commitment to political activism and coalition building, producing a variety of social and cultural activities. The musical practices of the East L.A. scene bring to the discussion the dislocations and displacements of people of color in urban California, but they also reflect the emergence of new forms of resistance that find counterhegemonic possibilities within contradictions.
Linda Ronstadt is a versatile singer who traversed multiple genres. She gained national hits such as "You're No Good", "It's So Easy", "Blue Bayou", "Back in the USA", and "Hurt So Bad" in the 1970s and '80s. Ronstadt was nurtured by her Mexican American family whose musical roots run deep in the Mexican border region of Tucson, Arizona. Ronstadt holds dear the memory of childhood serenades by "The Father of Chicano Rock," Lalo Guerrero, a close family friend. Ronstadt's great-aunt Luisa Espinel gained international popularity interpreting Spanish and Mexican song and dance in the 1930s.
Among the most popular female pop singers, Ronstadt has been described as an influential Chicana musician, with scholars noting her extensive discography and career spanning over four years.