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Just Another Band From East L.A.
When Los Lobos appeared on the national scene in 1984, with How Will the Wolf Survive?, the band had already been playing for eleven years. For the first seven years, they were Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles, a drummerless, acoustic quartet that specialized in Mexican folk songs. The only documents of that early […]
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Colossal Head
In 1992, when Los Lobos veered from roots rock to art rock on Kiko, it was as if Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon had adopted Genesis and Leonard Cohen as their role models. With its obscure lyrics, lack of grooves and ethereal mysticism, Kiko was a bold artistic gamble, but it is the weakest work […]
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How Long Has This Been Going On
Aretha Franklin and Van Morrison are the best vocal improvisers of their generation, but neither can be accurately described as a jazz singer. When authentic jazz singers such as Jon Hendricks or Betty Carter improvise, they construct new harmonic lines as variations on the melody. When Morrison and Franklin take off on the tag of […]
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