Los Lobos

"If you were Mexican-American and got married in Los Angeles between 1973 and 1980, we probably played your wedding," laughed Louie Pe'rez of Los Lobos, whose 1978 self-released debut, Just Another Band from East L.A. has been reissued on Hollywood.

Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles (The Wolves of East Los Angeles) didn't just play weddings then, but anywhere there might be a gig. Four friends from high school, playing in different bands, they came together in 1973, Pe'rez recalled, "and decided to pull out a couple of acoustic guitars and learn some old Mexican songs to play for our folks. We discovered so much stuff, and it was so challenging to our musicianship. And we discovered it was more than we could find in our parents' record collection."

"We've been all over the globe, and we're comfortable in who we are in the world."

For the next seven years, before starting on the roots rock that would make them famous, all they played was acoustic Mexican music. They recorded some short soundtracks for a film maker friend, and Si Se Puede, a benefit album for the United Farm Workers, but it wasn't until 1978 that they entered the studio to document their set of traditional music, which ranged from the romantic Latin bolero of "Sabor A Mi'" to pure Mexican ranchera on "La Feria De Las Flores."

"We sold the records at gigs, like weddings or weekend functions at a park," said Pe'rez. "During the ‘70s there were a lot of programs going on at colleges in California, and we played and sold them there."

The band shifted 1000 copies of the LP, more than they'd expected. Returning to it 22 years later "brought back so many memories," Pe'rez said, "those young voices, and the fingers reaching, trying to make it to the next phrase."

But 2000 has been as year of memories for a band whose personnel has barely changed in 27 years (apart from original members Pe'rez, David Hidalgo, Conrad Lozano, and Cesar Rosas, the only addition has been sax player Steve Berlin). As well as Just Another Band from East L.A. they're been preparing a 4-CD retrospective, El Cancionero, to be issued in November. It's also led them to start performing the old material in concert, going back to those early days.

"We're playing a lot of the stuff live now," Pe'rez pointed out. "The first 30 minutes of our show is folkloric; it's kind of like the history of the band."

While they delved more deeply into Mexican regional music with 1988's La Pistola Y El Corazo'n, the band are now considering another plunge into the ethnic waters, "to explore more, just for the joy of playing the music, and we'd like people to learn more about who we are. We've been all over the globe, and we're comfortable in who we are in the world."

Los Lobos

"We've been all over the globe, and we're comfortable in who we are in the world."

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