VENTURA COUNTY WEEKEND : CENTERPIECE : Chicano Pop-Rock Masters Bring Their Music to Town : The three groups introduced their Latino-flavored sound nearly 25 years ago. They’ll play in Ventura on Saturday.
It was nearly 25 years ago that Tierra, Malo and El Chicano introduced their hybrid sound--a blend of smooth vocal harmonies, Latin percussion, jazz and dance rhythms--to mainstream America. Their music evolved in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s out of the social and political movement that grew in urban Latino neighborhoods and forged a sense of unity in being Mexican American. The label Chicano was adopted to reflect the new emerging identity. These groups helped pave the way for later Latin R&B;, pop-rock and jazz groups ranging from Los Lobos to Gloria Estefan’s Miami Sound Machine.
So get ready for a blast from the past when these legends of Chicano pop-rock bring their classic oldies and new material to the Ventura Theatre on Saturday.
Opening the show will be El Chicano, an East L.A. rock/jazz band best known for its ‘70s rendition of “Tell Her She’s Lovely.” But it was the group’s version of Gerald Wilson’s jazz instrumental, “Viva Tirado,” in 1969 that launched the band into Billboard’s Top 40 pop, R&B;, jazz and adult contemporary charts. The following year El Chicano brought it’s soulful meld to the legendary Apollo Theatre--a first for a Chicano band. All told, the group scored three gold records with eight albums.
While El Chicano was touring the nation, Malo’s founding member, Arcelio Garcia, was a teenager rehearsing with 10 high school buddies in the Bay Area. Two of his guitarists were drafted into the armed services, and Garcia replaced them with Jorge Santana (brother of Carlos). A year later the band scored the No. 5 hit single with “Suavecito.”
“Carlos Santana came out with ‘Oye, Como Va’ in 1970, a year before we hit,” said Garcia during our recent phone conversation. With new players we needed a new identity. In the old days bad meant good. And we were baaaad, (malo). And we all come from a salsa and R&B; background. So after that we started calling our music ‘Latin funk-n-roll.’ ”
Several albums later, and with new singer-songwriter Martin Cantu, these 12 modern-day Mambo Kings have gotten better with age. Just listening to the high-energy merengue “Take My Breath Away” or “Senorita,” the infectious title track of their current Crescendo release, could leave one breathless.
Musically, the headliner group, Tierra, has come full circle with its seventh and most recent record, the retrospective “Street Corner Gold.” It features a silky doo-wop sound of the ‘50s as well as the traditional Mexican boleros styling that was popularized by such Mexican vocal groups as Los Dandy’s and Trio los Panchos, groups that the band’s members heard while growing up in East Los Angeles.
Tierra later incorporated the Motown and Philadelphia R&B; sounds of the ‘60s and early ‘70s along with that of Latin rock groups, especially Santana, and salsa musicians such as Ruben Blades, Willie Colon and Eddie Palmieri.
Tierra, the first Latin group to have four songs simultaneously in the Top 100, was formed in 1971 by brothers and veteran street singers Rudy and Steve Salas. Their self-titled album was released in 1971. That and “Stranded,” which came out the following year, started them rolling.
But “City Nights,” their 1980 independently released third effort, was their strongest album commercially and the one that put Tierra on the musical map. With more than 1 million records sold internationally, it started a bidding war that resulted in a record contract.
The song “Together,” along with two penned by Rudy Salas, “Memories” and “Gonna Find Her,” became crossover hit singles in the jazz, pop, rock and adult contemporary markets. Billboard magazine named them best R&B; vocal group in 1982. And later cuts, including the salsa-flavored “Margarita,” still receive radio airplay on English and Spanish-language stations across the country.
I asked Salas to explain how the marriage of musical influences enables the nine-piece band to give a song the Tierra musical stamp. The Junior Walker R&B; classic, “What Does It Take?” track on the current “Street Corner Gold” CD is a good example.
“We double-time it with a more upbeat, syncopated, tropical salsa rhythm in an Afro-Cuban, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican framework,” said Salas. “There are nine pieces with heavy brass and percussion instrumentation. And the keyboards or cuatro (acoustic guitar) plays a heavy, very disciplined, even montuno (repetitious beat) over the bass line as a foundation for all the different syncopated and offbeat rhythms of the percussion and other instruments to play through.”
That’s the recipe for a great Latin dance groove. And once the music starts, it all goes right to your hips.
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DETAILS
* WHAT: Tierra/Malo/El Chicano.
* WHERE: Ventura Theatre, 26 S. Chestnut St.
* WHEN: 8 p.m., Saturday.
* HOW MUCH: $17.50.
* CALL: 648-1888.