Pop Capsules : Ronstadt and Carr: Gifted and Glossy

The evening started like a house on fire--dancers on the lawn in front of Royce Hall, mariachi bands rousing passions from the stage. It was a perfect beginning for Saturday’s seventh annual UCLA Mexican Arts Series event featuring two of pop music’s most talented Mexican-American performers--Vikki Carr and Linda Ronstadt.

One of the opening groups, the stirring Mariachi Los Camperos De Nati Cano, generated instant emotional heat with a brief but effective program of traditional and contemporary material. When Ronstadt joined them, the temperature went even higher.

The one-time rock-music cutie has matured into one of the most gifted, versatile singers in pop-music history. But her exploration of Mexican-American material has revealed hitherto unseen creative qualities. She sang only two solo numbers Saturday, but they were more than worth the price of admission: brilliantly performed as musical pieces, passionately expressive as emotional statements.

Carr represents a glossier but no less vital aspect of Mexican-American music. Most of her set was devoted to a mini-version of a new concept album, “Esos Hombres,” in which she relates a turbulent story of lost and found love. To her credit, she brought life and vigor to a collection of material that came dangerously close to romance-novel sentimentality.

Carr’s real strengths, like Ronstadt’s, were best revealed in her earlier moments with the mariachi players--moments when the too-often unrecognized beauty and power of Mexican culture burst forth in a kaleidoscope of bright, sun-filled musical colors.