Recipient of the Rex Foundation's 1999
RALPH J. GLEASON AWARD
The Rex Foundation established the Ralph J. Gleason Award in 1986 for outstanding contributions to culture. The award is named in memory of the pioneering jazz and pop music journalist Ralph J. Gleason (1917-1975) who was a major figure in the advancement of creative music in America. Gleason displayed an openness to new music and new ideas that transcended differences between generations and styles.
Los Lobos was founded in the early 1970s by David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Louie Perez, and Conrad Lozano, who met as students at Garfield High in East L.A. The musicians had played a variety of different styles in neighborhood groups. They came under the sway of the era's political and cultural ferment, which gave rise to the Brown Berets and the Chicano Power movement, and they began listening to and studying the traditional Mexican music their parents played in their homes.
Deriving their name, Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles (the Wolves of East L.A.), from that of a popular Tex-Mex band, Los Lobos del Norte, the band developed a repertoire of some 150 traditional songs and accompanied themselves on the acoustic instruments employed by their Mexican precursors - bajo sexto, guitarron, jaran requinto, and button accordion. In time, Los Lobos became a popular fixture in East L.A.
With the release of "And a Time to Dance," in 1983, Los Lobos came to national attention, and in 1984 received the Grammy Award in the newly instituted category of best Mexican/American performance. In 1987 Los Lobos found unprecedented commercial success after director Luis Valdez - founder of the Hispanic theater troupe El Teatro Campesino and author of the breakthrough East L.A. historical drama "Zoot Suit" - asked the band to supply the soundtrack for "La Bamba," his feature about the life and tragic death of Ritchie Valens. Los Lobos had arrived.
www.loslobos.org
