The wolves have survived: How Los Lobos became one of the last bands standing from the '70s L.A. music scene
Article content
The five-piece act has not released new material since 2021's Native Sons, which was mostly a covers album that paid tribute to the Los Angeles music that inspired it. It may be hard to fathom, but the band that penned masterful tunes such as Angels with Dirty Faces, Will the Wolf Survive?, Little John of God, One Time One Night and dozens of others does not see songwriting as a priority at the moment. It is not a band that stockpiles songs.
Article content
Article content
'I thought we owed our record company another record, but our manager pointed out to me that we don't,' says saxophonist and keyboardist Steve Berlin. 'At this moment, we don't really have any plans to record. With the last one, we had this idea: What if we did this tribute to California? With whatever we do next, we'd have to have a similar sense. I don't think it's enough to just make another record. The hardest thing to do these days is to get anybody to pay attention, full stop. I'm not saying we have to have as specific a concept as a tribute to California music, but I think we should have a reason to go back in. We should have something we want to express. Right now, it's not in our purview.'
Article content
Article content
Suffice to say, Los Lobos has seen a lot of changes in the music industry since breaking out of the L.A. scene with a unique mix of R&B, garage-rock, Tex-Mex, Latin and Chicano styles. There was certainly a time when a new Los Lobos album would have been considered a major event among devotees. The group hit the mainstream in 1987 thanks to its lively cover of Richie Valens' La Bamba for the soundtrack of a film with the same name, but a consistent output of adventurous and challenging music over the past 47 years has made the band cult favourites and critics' darlings.
Still, Berlin — who joined the band as a full-time member in the mid-1980s after producing some of their early albums — admits he didn't predict they would have the longevity. While Los Lobos will be playing the main stage of the Calgary Folk Music Festival on Saturday, they are also in the midst of co-headlining with L.A.-punk pioneers X on The 99 Years of Rock n' Roll Tour. X are considered one of the godfathers of L.A. punk, having formed in 1977.
Article content
'They were foundational to the L.A. scene,' says Berlin. 'Even before they were my friends, I considered them royalty among the hierarchy of L.A. bands. I'm pretty sure everybody who was there would say the same thing. That's the story of the tour; it's really the last two bands standing with original members from that era. It was a pretty magical time for all of us. We were young and innocent and having a blast every day. I mean, had anybody asked me 40-whatever years ago if I thought Lobos and X would be the last bands standing, I would have said there is absolutely no way that could happen, but here we all are.'
Article content
Berlin, who also had stints with The Blasters and The Flesh Eaters in the 1970s, has also built a career as an in-demand producer. He has been at the helm for albums by The Tragically Hip, Rickie Lee Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama, among others. He says Los Lobos has kept his interest for decades with its artistic restlessness and constant reinvention.
Article content
The longevity may have something to do with the humble beginnings of the band. It was around for years, often playing numerous times a week in East L.A., before the wider world began to take notice, Berlin says.
Article content
'One of the things that made us built to last was the fact that, unlike X and really any band I can think of since the early sixties and seventies …, the guys were able to work out the music but grow up around each other, learn how to tolerate each other and be humans together. It was seven years before anybody outside of East L.A. had any idea who they were. The band formed in 1973. Most people would say their arrival was the night that I met them, which is when they opened up for the Blasters, even though they had been together for seven solid years playing at least three or four times a week.
Article content
Article content
'It's like the story of the Beatles going to Hamburg and playing every night for two years, more or less off the radar, and it's how they turned into the Beatles. I'm not saying that Los Lobos is the Beatles by any stretch of the imagination, but being able to basically grow up and learn not just music but life skills without the pressure of the spotlight is invaluable. I don't think anyone can do that anymore. Most people have their very first work on the Internet being critiqued. I don't think that's a healthy thing at all.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Calgary Herald
Concert review: Rain doesn't stop the party as Cake close Calgary Folk Music Festival
The rain returned to Prince's Island Park Sunday evening just as headliners Cake broke into Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle, the 1993 single from the California band that began their journey as unlikely rock stars. Article content Roughly half-a-dozen or more songs into the evening, lead vocalist John McCrea looked out into a sea of bopping, sloshing fans in rain-slicked ponchos and asked 'Is it sorta raining out there?' Article content Article content Three days of wet weather had turned much of Prince's Island Park into a muddy mess on Sunday evening, but it would be hard to find anyone in attendance who wasn't wearing a smile during Cake's set. It might be one of the most entertaining, f finales of any folk festival in recent memory. Thirty years after the band hit the mainstream with its unique brand of 'quirk-rock,' McCrea remains one of the most unusual frontmen since David Byrne. These days, he gives off a vibe that suggests a goofy, near-retirement grade-school science teacher letting his hair down on a field trip. But there is no denying his magnetic appeal. Article content Article content After a comically long and epic intro of piped-in triumphant music, the band appeared on stage and eventually kicked off the set with the clever Frank Sinatra and Sheep Go the Heaven. The latter became the first of many endearingly odd singalongs. It happened again with an extended run through the catchy Sick of You and Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, their 1996 English-language cover of the Cuban favourite. McCrea even managed to turn the 2024 single Billionaire in Space, the first new music Cake has released in more than seven years, into a singalong despite the fact that it likely has not be widely heard yet. Steve Berlin, saxophonist for one of Saturday night's headliners, Los Lobos, joined the band for their 2007 cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs and audience enthusiasm hit a frenzied peak when the band played hits such as The Distance and Short Skirt/Long Jacket. On the surface, the band seems like an unlikely stadium act. But those disco bass lines, blasts of trumpet and catchy hooks remain endlessly endearing. Article content Article content It was a nice send-off for audiences after a mucky few days of inclement weather. Article content The festival survived what artistic director Kerry Clarke called 'the soggiest event we've had in years if not decades,' with a sudden thunder storm and downpour halting the music temporarily on the main stage on Saturday. Article content But the show otherwise went on Saturday, with main stage acts Madeleine Peyroux, Le Mamans du Congo X Rrobin, Los Lobos and Steve Earle shaving five to 10 minutes from their sets to accommodate the delay. In the end, the evening came to an end only half-hour after the planned 11:30 p.m. finish. Article content 'We've had bad rain, but probably the worst was 25 years ago where it poured all day,' says Clarke. 'There's always rumours of rain at our festival. In the afternoon the skies open up for half an hour and then it's clear. It's my fault, last year I was complaining about how dry the site was and how there was no grass.'
Calgary Herald
7 days ago
- Calgary Herald
Concert review: Eclectic lineup livens soggy Saturday at the Calgary Folk Music Festival
Article content 'It's not a folk festival until someone comes along with an electric guitar and (expletive) it all up' said Steve Earle on Saturday night at the Calgary Folk Music Festival before launching into a lively version of The Week of Living Dangerously, his scorching 1987 honky-tonk cautionary tale. Article content It was nice reminder of Earle's wild youth and his 50-year genre-fuzzy career that has always placed him on outer limits of country music. It was also, presumably, a reference to one of the most infamous folk-fest moments in music history: Bob Dylan's performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where he went 'electric' and received boos and hostility from the folk purists in the crowd. Article content Article content After 46 years of adventurous music, it should be clear to anyone who has been paying attention that the Calgary Folk Fest has never been a festival for folk purists. Saturday's festivities at Prince's Island Park nevertheless offered a nice mix of what we have come to expect from a folk fest lineup: There was some straight-ahead folk from Scotland's Langan Band, some progressive politics and jazz-folk from U.S. singer-songwriter Madeleine Peyroux, some world-music from the lively Les Mamans du Congo X Rrobin and two roots-rock icons in Earle and veteran genre-hoppers Los Lobos. Article content Article content Article content Earle, who recently celebrated a half-century in the music industry, offered a good deal of nostalgia for long-term fans. He didn't leave the 1980s for his first five songs. Backed by Austin, Tx. country-rock act Reckless Kelly, Earle kicked things off with three songs from his 1986 debut Guitar Town that included the title track, the yearning Someday and haunting My Old Friend the Blues. It was followed by the singalong gem I Ain't Ever Satisfied from his 1987 sophomore record Exit 0 and the Devil's Right Hand from his 1989 breakthrough Copperhead Road. There were a few surprises. It was nice to hear his 1995 ballad Goodbye. It is one of his most beautiful and mournful melodies and the first song Earle penned when kicking a nasty drug habit. Bad Girls, a song literally released last week as a duet between Earle and Reckless Kelly, fit in nicely, as did the stinging title track and howling Fixin' To Die from 2017's So You Wanna Be An Outlaw. One of the highlights was It's About Blood, a harrowing obscurity from Earle's 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia and the off-Broadway musical Coal Country, which is about the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster that killed 29 people. Article content Article content But, for the most part, Saturday's closing set offered a handful of crowd-pleasing favourites, including suitably charged takes on Copperhead Road, Hard-Core Troubadour, The Galway Girl and the Celtic-flavoured encore Johnny Come Lately, which Earle recorded with The Pogues in London in the 1980s (He dedicated the song to that band's late frontman Shane MacGowan, who died in 2023.) Article content Article content These days, the bearded 70-year-old Earle has a stage presence that suggests a somewhat weary elder statesmen, but having a band like Reckless Kelly behind him gave the songs an extra kick to end the evening. Article content The day was not without its speed bumps. A thunder storm and early evening downpour temporarily halted the music few minutes after the Langan Band finished their opening set, topping off a day of grey clouds on Prince's Island Park. The weather teetered on the edge of uncooperative on both Friday and Saturday afternoon during the four-day festival, with rain and unusually cold temperatures putting a damper on things and turning the park into a soggy, muddy mess. Just before Peyroux was about the hit the stage, the crowd was told that the performances would halt in hopes it would blow over. It delayed things for about an hour before the sun broke through the clouds, which may have gotten the loudest cheer from the soaked audience up until that point in the day.
Calgary Herald
24-07-2025
- Calgary Herald
The wolves have survived: How Los Lobos became one of the last bands standing from the '70s L.A. music scene
While it may not be what Los Lobos fans want to hear, the veteran band from East L.A. has no plans of returning to the studio anytime soon. Article content The five-piece act has not released new material since 2021's Native Sons, which was mostly a covers album that paid tribute to the Los Angeles music that inspired it. It may be hard to fathom, but the band that penned masterful tunes such as Angels with Dirty Faces, Will the Wolf Survive?, Little John of God, One Time One Night and dozens of others does not see songwriting as a priority at the moment. It is not a band that stockpiles songs. Article content Article content 'I thought we owed our record company another record, but our manager pointed out to me that we don't,' says saxophonist and keyboardist Steve Berlin. 'At this moment, we don't really have any plans to record. With the last one, we had this idea: What if we did this tribute to California? With whatever we do next, we'd have to have a similar sense. I don't think it's enough to just make another record. The hardest thing to do these days is to get anybody to pay attention, full stop. I'm not saying we have to have as specific a concept as a tribute to California music, but I think we should have a reason to go back in. We should have something we want to express. Right now, it's not in our purview.' Article content Article content Suffice to say, Los Lobos has seen a lot of changes in the music industry since breaking out of the L.A. scene with a unique mix of R&B, garage-rock, Tex-Mex, Latin and Chicano styles. There was certainly a time when a new Los Lobos album would have been considered a major event among devotees. The group hit the mainstream in 1987 thanks to its lively cover of Richie Valens' La Bamba for the soundtrack of a film with the same name, but a consistent output of adventurous and challenging music over the past 47 years has made the band cult favourites and critics' darlings. Still, Berlin — who joined the band as a full-time member in the mid-1980s after producing some of their early albums — admits he didn't predict they would have the longevity. While Los Lobos will be playing the main stage of the Calgary Folk Music Festival on Saturday, they are also in the midst of co-headlining with L.A.-punk pioneers X on The 99 Years of Rock n' Roll Tour. X are considered one of the godfathers of L.A. punk, having formed in 1977. Article content 'They were foundational to the L.A. scene,' says Berlin. 'Even before they were my friends, I considered them royalty among the hierarchy of L.A. bands. I'm pretty sure everybody who was there would say the same thing. That's the story of the tour; it's really the last two bands standing with original members from that era. It was a pretty magical time for all of us. We were young and innocent and having a blast every day. I mean, had anybody asked me 40-whatever years ago if I thought Lobos and X would be the last bands standing, I would have said there is absolutely no way that could happen, but here we all are.' Article content Berlin, who also had stints with The Blasters and The Flesh Eaters in the 1970s, has also built a career as an in-demand producer. He has been at the helm for albums by The Tragically Hip, Rickie Lee Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama, among others. He says Los Lobos has kept his interest for decades with its artistic restlessness and constant reinvention. Article content The longevity may have something to do with the humble beginnings of the band. It was around for years, often playing numerous times a week in East L.A., before the wider world began to take notice, Berlin says. Article content 'One of the things that made us built to last was the fact that, unlike X and really any band I can think of since the early sixties and seventies …, the guys were able to work out the music but grow up around each other, learn how to tolerate each other and be humans together. It was seven years before anybody outside of East L.A. had any idea who they were. The band formed in 1973. Most people would say their arrival was the night that I met them, which is when they opened up for the Blasters, even though they had been together for seven solid years playing at least three or four times a week. Article content Article content 'It's like the story of the Beatles going to Hamburg and playing every night for two years, more or less off the radar, and it's how they turned into the Beatles. I'm not saying that Los Lobos is the Beatles by any stretch of the imagination, but being able to basically grow up and learn not just music but life skills without the pressure of the spotlight is invaluable. I don't think anyone can do that anymore. Most people have their very first work on the Internet being critiqued. I don't think that's a healthy thing at all.'
