All-Spanish Los Lobos LP Due in Fall

Los Lobos, the East Los Angeles homeboys who have made their imprint on contemporary pop music with their Latino interpretations of ‘50s rock and folk songs, have returned to their roots: Mexican music.

The quintet plans to release an all-Spanish album, “La Pistola y El Corazon” (“The Pistol and the Heart”), in October and promote the LP with an acoustic, 10-city tour.

Rick Bates, the band’s co-manager, said this week that Los Lobos has completed the album, which he described as a “special project” rather than a major departure from the group’s pop-rock style.

“It’s not really the ‘next’ Los Lobos album,” Bates said. “They are going into the studio soon to start their next rock album. This is something they wanted to do more as an artistic venture. I don’t think anybody is expecting it to sell 5 million copies.”

Bates sees some sales potential, however, underscored by the recent success of Linda Ronstadt’s “Canciones de mi Padre” album, which has sold about 1 million copies.

But the manager rejects the notion that the group is climbing onto the Spanish bandwagon. He pointed out that Los Lobos released a Spanish-language album in 1978 before the band become popular on the rock circuit. That album, “Los Lobos Del Este de Los Angeles,” was a collection of Mexican and South American folk songs performed on acoustic instruments.

After that, the band was signed by Slash/Warner Bros. Records, and has been hailed by music critics for what is frequently described as a danceable fusion of American rock and Mexican music.

Los Lobos’ three rock albums also have been praised for their socially conscious themes. The group included one or more norteno classics, such as “Prenda del Alma” by the Los Alegres de Tehran, in those rock albums.

Last year’s Los Lobos-dominated “La Bamba” sound-track album also pays its respects to Mexican music. The album opens with a few bars of the traditional version of “La Bamba”--a song in the lively Jarocho style from Veracruz. The album, which has sold more than 2.5 million copies, was the band’s commercial breakthrough.

News of a Spanish-language album may catch the industry by surprise. But Bates insists that longtime Los Lobos fans won’t be surprised, suggesting the move will be seen as simply a sign of the group’s growing self-confidence.

“It’s something they’ve wanted to do for a long time, but they understand the studio system better now,” he said. “They feel they are in a position to increase their talents, and Warner Bros. has been nice enough to let them stretch out artistically. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

As with the band’s first Spanish album, “La Pistola’s” nine songs are all performed on acoustic instruments. The collection, which includes two original compositions--including the title track co-written by lead singer David Hidalgo and drummer Louie Perez--also steers clear of the twangy norteno ballads of their recent rock albums, Bates said.

Los Lobos instead dives back into the double-entendres and instrumental challenges of the Veracruz-styled sones, or dance melodies, such as “El Guacamayo” (“The Macaw”), and obscure folk songs like “Sonajas Mananitas Michoacanas,” which demand virtuoso performances on an array of stringed instruments.

While the band’s full-body immersion into Spanish may or may not prove risky, UCLA music professor Steve Loza, who has written a book on Latinos in Los Angeles pop music to be published this fall by the University of Illinois Press, said Los Lobos has already delivered a far-reaching cultural message.

“The fact that Los Lobos can play a variety of regional American styles as well as regional Mexican styles says something profound. They are subverting the traditional cultural definition of America, one defined by political, racial and linguistic exclusions, for a more inclusive, Latin definition of America as a hemisphere without borders.”