A New Life for Musical Ghosts

Carlos Jimenez opens his well-worn wallet to show a personal memento he always carries. Tucked inside one of the clear plastic picture sleeves is a guitar pick that once belonged to his brother, Edgardo, who was killed during El Salvador’s civil war. If you look closely, Jimenez says, you can still see specks of blood.

The brothers shared a musical bond as members of a Los Angeles combo that disbanded in 1989 when Edgardo, the guitarist and composer, returned to attend college in his native El Salvador. Before the year was out, he was murdered for his political activities, says Jimenez, though his body was never found. Only Edgardo’s blood-soaked wallet survived, with the guitar pick his brother now saves.

Earlier this year, Jimenez stopped in El Salvador to visit his brother’s memorial, as he often does. Only this time, he came face to face with musical ghosts he never expected to find.

Playing at a concert for peace in his country’s capital, San Salvador, were none other than Los Guaraguao, a veteran Venezuelan folk group famous for haunting protest songs from the early 1970s. Jimenez thought the members of the outspoken quartet had been killed, like his brother, for political reasons. He had even read accounts of their deaths in the press.

Yet there they were--the original four members of Los Guaraguao, a little heavier and grayer, but very much alive.

“It had so much impact on me to hear them sing those songs which at one time had been completely banned in El Salvador,” says Jimenez, a very young-looking grandfather. “I’d like people to know they’re alive!”

Live and in person, Los Guaraguao will make their U.S. debut Friday at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. Thanks to the efforts of Jimenez and community workers at Dolores Mission Catholic Church in Boyle Heights, the veteran group will headline a benefit concert for Salvadoran earthquake victims, a cause that has been overshadowed by last month’s terrorist attacks.

Proceeds from the concert, which also features the popular Los Angeles band Quetzal, will go to help rebuild 22 rural communities in El Salvador hit by earthquakes earlier this year. Organizers hope to build a brick factory in the region to provide materials for new homes at low cost and provide jobs to boost the local economy.

Few groups could be more fitting for the cause of decent shelter for the poor than Los Guaraguao, which takes its name from an indigenous word for falcon. The group is best known for its 1973 international hit “Casas de Carton,” or Cardboard Houses, which describes the misery of people forced to live in flimsy, makeshift structures typical of slums throughout Latin America.

The song, with its simple, sweet melody and angry political message, has remained an anthem of the New Song movement, a fusion of folk music and socially conscious lyrics that has inspired human rights protests throughout the continent since the 1960s. It was written by the late Ali Primera, a revered Venezuelan singer-songwriter whose works fueled the popularity of Los Guaraguao.

“The song hasn’t lost its power, because the problems are still there,” says the group’s guitarist Eduardo Martinez, whose soft-spoken lead vocal on that tune conveys a childlike sadness.

In the 1980s, Primera was killed in a car crash on his way home from a Caracas recording studio, Martinez says. The accident sparked conspiracy theories alleging the songwriter, a self-proclaimed communist, had actually been murdered. (Primera’s sons, Servando and Florentino, a respected salsa duo in their own right, recently released an album with sterling new versions of their father’s songs.)

Martinez is convinced Primera’s death was accidental, but his loss hurt Los Guaraguao, who had relied on the songwriter as “a fundamental pillar” of their music. The group fell into a period of relative inactivity, feeding the rumors of their own disappearance.

Everywhere they go, Martinez says, fans are surprised to find them alive. “A myth was created surrounding the band,” says Martinez, 52. “There are still many people who say, ‘No, this must be a different group.”’

Even Jimenez, the church worker, studied before-and-after photos of Los Guaraguao to match the now middle-aged musicians with the much younger band he remembers. Yes, he concluded, they’re the same guys: Martinez on guitar, Jesus Cordero on bass, Jose Guerra on drums and Luis Suares, who joined in 1977, on lead guitar and mandolin.

Martinez says the band members were never in any real danger, though they’ve had their scrapes with the authorities. At one concert in Caracas, Martinez recalls, a military man in uniform expressed his displeasure by throwing a glass of water in his face.

“We’re aware that we sing a type of song which many people don’t approve of,” he says. “And we know the risks, but we’re not going to back down. If social problems didn’t exit, there’d be no need to sing about them.”

The group’s fighting spirit remains intact on its latest album, “El Sombrero Azul” (The Blue Hat), their 15th recording in the 28 years since “Casas de Carton.” The group went from 1984 to 1996 with no new releases, then issued a comeback album titled “Vamos Andando” (Let’s Walk Together).

But nothing has matched the popularity and power of their early period when other memorable tunes such as “Mi Viejo” (My Old Man) combined with the activism of the era to propel their popularity throughout Latin America and Spain. Los Guaraguao also became international ambassadors of Venezuelan folk music, a lively and distinct style that has been eclipsed by better-known forms from neighboring Colombia.

That style suits die-hard fans such as Jimenez, who still prefers protest music to pop.

“The social song makes you question things,” says Jimenez, vice president of the Dolores Mission Solidarity Committee, composed of parishioners who have already delivered aid to quake victims and are now sponsoring the concert. “It makes you ask, ‘What am I doing about those people in the cardboard houses, and about those children who go to sleep with nothing to eat?”’

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Los Guaraguao with Quetzal, Cumbeley and Angela & Gabriel, Friday at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, 1801 S. Grand Ave, L.A. 7 p.m. (323) 780-8974.