Los Lobos

One of the most successful and most enduring Latino bands, Los Lobos found unexpected mainstream fame in the late 1980s when their upbeat dance version of the old classic “La Bamba” featured in a movie of the same name; a biopic of the Mexican roots rocker Ritchie Valens, who died in 1959. Formed in LA in 1974 by a group of friends of Mexican origin and fronted by singer and multi-instrumentationalist David Hidalgo, they mixed rock'n'roll with Cajun zydeco dance music. Their self-financed debut album, 1978’s Just Another Band from East L.A., impressed enough people to lead to rave reviews for their second, How Will the Wolf Survive?, produced by T-Bone Burnett. With their high-energy good-time style, they also established a reputation as a thrilling live act before “La Bamba” became the first Spanish language song to top the pop charts in the US and UK in 1987. Their 1988 album La Pistola y El Corazon - a deliberate attempt to get back to their roots after all the pop fame - also sold well, while 1992’s Kiko re-established their rock credentials. In 2004 they collaborated with the likes of Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and Mavis Staples on their 2004 album The Ride and diversified further in 2009 with an album of Disney covers, Los Lobos Goes Disney. Even after a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 the band continued to tour and record albums like 2015’s Gates of Gold, and the 2019 Christmas album Llego Navidad. In 2021 the National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon them the National Heritage Fellowship, and they released their seventeenth album, Native Sons.

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