Los Lobos founding member and guitar-string pioneer dies at 68: ‘He was our own Chicano conservatory’

In 1975, KCET aired a half-hour concert featuring a hot new local band. As an opening shot of the downtown skyline segued into a slice-of-life montage of East Los Angeles, a twinkling harp played over a lilting voice as the group performed a song in the son jarocho tradition of the Mexican state of Veracruz.

In Mexico, old-timers said that González’s handiwork made instruments resonate with a sound they hadn’t heard in decades. But when González first began to play son jarocho, which he learned about through listening to his sister’s records, “it was like in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when it goes from black-and-white to color. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore,” he told the biographer of Los Lobos in 2015.

By then, González was long gone from the band, more interested in sticking with Mexican regional music instead of the fusion between those genres and Americans sounds that his former bandmates wanted to explore.After his stint with Teatro Campesino, which lasted from 1980 to 1984, González settled in Santa Barbara, where Yolanda was a professor.

Soon after, González — frustrated that he couldn’t find good enough strings for his Mexican instruments — opened Guadalupe Custom Strings in Goleta in 1990, which continues to operate under different ownership in East Los Angeles.

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Francisco González, Los Lobos founding member and guitar-string pioneer, dead at 68Francisco González became a musical icon in his own right, acting as an apostle for son jarocho and handmaking strings for Mexico's family of guitars.
Source: sdut - 🏆 5. / 95 Read more »

Meet Bob Hertzberg: A Virtual Event With A Los Angeles County Supervisor CandidateKPCC/LAist and KCRW are hosting a series of one-on-one interviews with the candidates for Los Angeles County Supervisor for District 3. KCRW host Steve Chiotakis will ask candidate Bob Hertzberg questions that matter most to you.
Source: LAist - 🏆 606. / 51 Read more »

Los Angeles sheriff embarks on homeless cleanup effort in Hollywood.LACoSheriff Alex Villanueva has decided to make the entertainment capital of the world his next homeless cleanup project.
Source: dcexaminer - 🏆 6. / 94 Read more »

Average Los Angeles County gas price drops for 7th consecutive day to $5.97The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County dropped Monday for the seventh consecutive day, decreasing eight-tenths of a cent to $5.979. They sure know how to hike up the prices pretty fast but when it comes to lowering they take their sweet fuckin time!! fast increase and slow decrease. BS
Source: ABC7 - 🏆 67. / 68 Read more »

A hypersonic plane? Houston company seeks to fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo in 1 hourVenus Aerospace, a Houston company developing a plane that could fly passengers from Los... poppy_northcutt Plane or intercontinental ballistic missile with wings and seats?
Source: HoustonChron - 🏆 609. / 51 Read more »