Good Morning Aztlan finds Los Lobos dispensing with the atmospherics and experimentation that marked much of their Nineties work and returning to their early bread and butter: roots rock spiked with R&B, soul and folk sounds they absorbed growing up among Mexican immigrants in East L.A. The title track, based on a fuzzy, dirt-simple riff and two-step backbeat, is the most propulsive among half a dozen fast ones, and the slinky rhythms of "Maria Christina" and "Luz de Mi Vida" are beefed up by horns, accordion and Afro-Cuban percussion. Pristine production casts tales of rural restlessness and friendship in full-on Technicolor, and with oblique references to the murder of singer-guitarist Cesar Rosas' wife casting a pall over some of the down-tempo numbers, Aztlan is all we could ask from these twenty-nine-year vets: a record as poignant as it is rollicking, and a welcome return to form.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.