The Beat Goes On
CHICAGO—If you dug Sir Doug, you’ll love this: Los Lobos, four guys from East Los Angeles, are really onto something. Having first hooked up in 1974 to play folk music, they went electric two-and-a-half years ago and began playing a mixture of rock ’n’ roll, Tex-Mex, old R&B, and norteno music, which is an accordion-powered dance beat also known among Anglos as “Mexican polka.”
The Beat Goes On
LOS LOBOS HOWL
CHICAGO—If you dug Sir Doug, you’ll love this: Los Lobos, four guys from East Los Angeles, are really onto something. Having first hooked up in 1974 to play folk music, they went electric two-and-a-half years ago and began playing a mixture of rock ’n’ roll, Tex-Mex, old R&B, and norteno music, which is an accordion-powered dance beat also known among Anglos as “Mexican polka.”
Los Lobos are a pretty potent argument against anybody’s idea of purism. On their EP, ...And A Time To Dance, they jump around among various styles we’ve all heard before, but it’s in two original tunes that they come closest to a true hybrid of their various influences. “Let’s Say Goodnight” pits an insistent riff from guitarist/accordianist/singer David Hidalgo’s squeezebox against a cool shuffle rhythm, and “How Much Can I Do?” fuses norteno with New Orleans R&B and zydeco, anchored by bassman Conrad Lozano’s terrific sense of swing.