mariachi music

The Triumphant Return of Los Camperos

When I was in college, my father would make occasional trips from San Jose to Los Angeles to see the new mariachi at La Fonda, a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard His visits were more like musical pilgrimages. Dr. Gurza would say there was no place to hear a good mariachi in the Bay Area. So, whenever he’d drive south, ostensibly to visit a friend from our hometown of Torreon, he’d always make a beeline for La Fonda first. That was an 8-hour drive in those days, on the old 101 Highway. But Dad was never too tired to take in a set or two by Los Camperos de Nati Cano.

Fast forward almost 40 years. I’m standing in La Fonda again, this time as a writer for the Los Angeles Times, interviewing Nati Cano as he was about to be evicted from his longtime location. He was in the midst of legal dispute with his landlord over rent increases, a victim of the gentrification that has pushed so many Latinos out of homes and businesses in barrios throughout California. It would be a losing battle for the veteran musician who had done so much to elevate the status of mariachi music north of the border. Ultimately, in 2007 he was forced to abandon the location he had occupied for almost half a century. Seven years later, he passed away.

I always carried a touch of cultural resentment over that episode in the history of Mexican-American music in Los Angeles. All things must pass, as George Harrison said. But this transition left a bad taste. Cano, who devoted his career to promoting mariachi music in Southern California, was unceremoniously removed from the venue he had established in 1969, when there was nothing like it in our area. Cano is considered the first to create a showcase for a local mariachi by putting his ensemble on a raised stage, thus making it a focal point of his restaurant. This was at a time when the average mariachi was more commonly a strolling band of minstrels playing for tips. So, the formal, dinner-theater format was received by fans as an exciting and validating innovation.

And then Nati Cano and his Camperos were pushed aside, not for progress, but for profit.

This sad story would make a tragic corrido, if it weren’t for the surprise happy ending. This year, Los Camperos have returned to

their original, revered venue, resuming regular dinner shows as the house band at La Fonda. In its new incarnation, Mariachi Los Camperos is under the direction of Jesus “Chuy” Guzman, a veteran of the ensemble who worked with Cano and who is also a lecturer in Mexican music in UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology.

The restaurant has been somewhat remodeled, with a smaller stage tucked into a corner and a more open floor plan making the performance visible from the bar. Old paintings of the ensemble’s past players have been taken down, except for one. The only portrait left hanging, fittingly, is a flattering image of the restaurant’s smiling founder, Nati Cano.

The show at La Fonda continues to attract an international audience, including many tourists. At the same time, Los Camperos have kept up their busy touring schedule, carrying the standard of concert-quality mariachi music around the world.

“I can only attest to the love people have for them anywhere they've spread their magic,” says NPR music journalist Felix Contreras, who recalls seeing Cano and his Camperos at a mariachi festival in Fresno years ago. “Fresno audiences welcomed them not just for the reputation that the group had earned, but mostly because of the group's ability to play mariachi from the heart that spoke directly to the people.”

The Frontera Collection includes several recordings by Los Camperos, both LPs and 45-rpm singles on various labels. A search yields results for the group under different names: Mariachi Los Camperos, Super Mariachi Los Camperos, and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano.

One of those singles features “Somos Novios,” the Armando Manzanero classic, backed by “Yo Sin Ti.” The songs are from an LP that is not in the database and entitled “El Super Mariachi Los Camperos en La Fonda.” The album is not dated, but my personal copy has autographs by some band members with a date under one of the signatures: August 5, 1972. That is only three years after Cano opened La Fonda, and the group picture on the cover shows the bandleader as a young man, holding his violin and smiling, of course.

The recording was released on Latin International, a local label owned by Pepe Garcia, another pioneering figure in the local Latin music industry. Garcia, a Cuban-American who had moved to L.A. from Miami, had built a mini-music empire, which he lorded over with regal authority. His businesses included the record label and a wholesale record distributor, all based at his flagship retail music store called Musica Latina, located on Pico Boulevard and only a 10-minute drive from La Fonda. The imposing corner building was a landmark of L.A.’s burgeoning record industry, with labels from Mexico opening branch offices for U.S. sales all along the Pico corridor just west of downtown. At the time, the Latin business was still largely ghettoized, concentrated in areas like “La Pico” and along Broadway, then an all-Latino shopping district, dotted with Latin record stores in a pre-gentrified downtown. Latino music mavens would gather for lunch at a Cuban restaurant called El Colmao, adjacent to Musica Latina. The restaurant is still there, although Musica Latina is long gone, along with the rest of the area’s once thriving Latin record business.

I mention that background by way of context for the importance of this early Camperos LP. It captures this seminal period in L.A.’s Latin music industry, when local artists and businessmen came together to make their mark. Some, like Cano, would succeed beyond their dreams.

Los Camperos first gained an international spotlight in 1964 when they performed at Carnegie Hall as accompaniment for Pedro Vargas, one of the most popular Mexican singing stars of the day. The concert was recorded live and released as a box set by RCA Victor. My copy of the album includes a program booklet with a small photo of Los Camperos on stage with Vargas at the famed New York venue. In a somewhat condescending review of the show, The New York Times called the concert “sentimental,” compared the singer’s popularity to a “serape,” and noted that Vargas exchanged a “brazo” during the show with the Mexican ambassador, evoking a gruesome image of the men swapping arms on stage rather than an embrace (“abrazo”). The review reflects the demeaning, stereotypical attitudes towards the music that Cano fought hard to counteract during his career.

Almost a quarter century later, Cano and his Camperos participated in another landmark collaboration, this time with singer Linda Ronstadt for her recording of Mexican mariachi standards, Canciones de Mi Padre. (The full album is included in the Frontera Collection, though neither Nati Cano nor Los Camperos are credited as one of her backup mariachis.) Ronstadt recalls rehearsing with Los Camperos in a rear storage room at La Fonda. In an interview for my 2001 profile of Cano in the Los Angeles Times, Ronstadt told me she considered the mariachi bandleader a mentor who helped her capture the authentic feel of the genre.

That album, and a sequel, Mas Canciones, that also featured Los Camperos, sparked a revival of interest in mariachi music throughout the United States. Cano pointed to those albums as a milestone in the campaign to bring greater respect for mariachi music as a genre.

Cano’s dinner-theater concept has since been imitated by other mariachis across Southern California and the Southwest. Today, it’s almost taken for granted. But it’s hard to overstate how exciting the show was when it was first introduced. Consider the following account by Daniel Sheehy, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who earned his doctorate in ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1979. Sheehy, who joined a campus mariachi ensemble as a student, recalls the thrill of his first visit to La Fonda in 1969.

“For my fellow student mariachi enthusiasts and me, a trip to La Fonda was akin to visiting a sacred temple of mariachi music, and Nati Cano was its high priest,” Sheehy writes in the liner notes for the 2002 Camperos CD ¡Viva El Mariachi! on Smithsonian Folkways, the label he directed at the time. “His life’s goal has been to bring greater acceptance, understanding, and respect to the mariachi tradition, and to reach the widest possible audience with his music. His uncompromising position has been to preserve the essential ‘mariachi sound,’ in his words, as the baseline of the tradition. I know that many would agree that in this, he has succeeded.”

–Agustín Gurza

Maestro Rubén Fuentes Turns 90

In all genres of music, we always find talented people behind the scenes who are far more influential than they are famous. In jazz and R&B, think Quincy Jones. In the case of The Beatles, think George Martin.

And when it comes to Mexican music, think Rubén Fuentes, the composer, arranger, and producer, who over the course of a half century left his unmistakable stamp on Mexico’s most emblematic pop music style, the mariachi. Though he has worked with the biggest names in the field and has written some of the genre’s best-known songs, even the most ardent mariachi fans may not recognize Fuentes’s name.

Fuentes himself may be to blame for his own low profile. He tends to avoid the spotlight and notoriously shuns interviews, according to mariachi musician and historian Jonathan Clark, a contributor to this site. The maestro can be curt, verging on anti-social. When famed mariachi director Nati Cano, of the Los Angeles-based Los Camperos, organized a concert in tribute to Fuentes at UCLA some years back, Clark recalls, the guest of honor did not attend.

While he may not have the household name of artists with whom he has worked – legendary figures such as Jose Alfredo Jimenez and Miguel Aceves Mejía, for example – Fuentes has an immense reputation in the recording industry. He is a musician’s musician.

“He’s definitely a genius,” Clark told me recently. “In my opinion, he is the most important musical figure in the entire history of mariachi music.”

Last month, Fuentes celebrated his 90th birthday at his home in Mexico City, surrounded by friends, well-wishers and, of course, a houseful of musicians, Clark included. Playing at the party was none other than the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, the fabled ensemble that Fuentes has now worked with steadily for 72 years. He joined as a violinist in 1944 and is now the group’s general director.

And he’s still writing the band’s arrangements, like the complex and unusual piece, a poem set to music, which made its debut at his party. The performance of that song was the icing on the cake of this birthday celebration.

“The highlight of the evening was the world premiere of maestro Fuentes’ latest composition, an unorthodox canción ranchera titled ‘El Amor Tiene Tres Tiempos,’ with lyrics by Irma Cue,” Clarke writes in a blog for the website MariachiMusic.com. “The coauthor, who was a guest that night, was elated to hear her free verse poem so masterfully set to music and performed.”

Now in its sixth incarnation, Mariachi Vargas started work on a new studio album this month (March). The album will include the new song, which was a challenge to arrange musically because the lyrics are written in free verse.

“I recently had the opportunity to watch the maestro prepare the score for ‘El Amor Tiene Tres Tiempos’ with his copyist,” recalls Clark. “His piano playing is a little rusty these days, and his music handwriting isn't quite as steady as it used to be, but I’m happy to say that the genius that earned him the reputation of being the most important composer-arranger in the history of mariachi music is still very much intact. And his attention to detail is second to none."

Somewhat surprisingly, a search for the musician’s work in the Frontera Collection does not yielded as many recordings as one might expect, considering his volume of work over so many decades with so many top stars. That may be partly a function of the way songs are credited. All 219 of his compositions in the archive are credited to Fuentes along with one of many co-writers. Of those, 44 are by the song-writing duo of Vargas-Fuentes, referring to his long-time collaborator and mariachi founder Silvestre Vargas. Complete results appear by entering last name, first initial: Vargas, S. or Fuentes, R.)

As usual, producer and arranger credits do not reliably appear on record labels, especially 78-rpm and 45-rpm discs. Fuentes does get producer credit on the mariachi LP that is perhaps best known by North American music fans, Linda Ronstadt's Grammy-winning “Canciones de Mi Padre.”

In the music industry, there is a well-known controversy that Fuentes allegedly took credit for other people’s work. That issue will be explored in a full bio of the musician, coming soon..

Meanwhile, says Clark, there is no doubt about the maestro’s lifelong contribution in “rescuing, arranging, and popularizing” what is considered Mexico’s most important folk music tradition.

--Agustín Gurza

Celebrating the Sideman: Rigoberto Mercado

In rock music, fans are often on a first-name basis with band members, like John, Paul, George, and Ringo. In salsa during the boom of the 1970s, fans started demanding musician credits on every album because, as with jazz, they followed the sidemen sometimes as much as the featured front.

But in mariachi music, the accomplished musicians who play and record with famous bands often go unheralded. Fans frequently know superstar vocalists or band directors, such as Silvestre Vargas and Pepe Villa, whose mariachis carry their names. But credits are often missing for even the best violinists, trumpet players, and guitarists in a mariachi, including those who play for decades with the same ensemble.

So when a veteran mariachi musician is singled out and recognized for his contributions, the honor is all the more noteworthy. This month, fans and colleagues paid tribute to trumpet player Rigoberto Mercado, a member of the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán for more than a quarter century. The native of Tequila, Jalisco, was honored during the 21st annual Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza, which took place in San Antonio, Texas, November 15-21. The mission of the event, organized by promoter Cynthia Muñoz, is to showcase artists who have made significant contributions to the mariachi genre.

Mercado first joined the Mariachi Vargas in 1966. He went on to make scores of individual recordings with the band, mostly uncredited, as well as hundreds more as an anonymous accompanist for some of the greatest singers in the genre. But it’s almost impossible to know which songs or which albums he actually played on, according to Jonathan Clark, a mariachi musician and historian.

“Probably far less than 1 percent of mariachi recordings credit the individual musicians,” says Clark, who authored the section on mariachi music for the book about the UCLA archive, The Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings. “I think there have been only two albums in Mariachi Vargas’ history that do this.”

Some determined fans have tried to identify musicians they recognize from album covers, but that’s also unreliable.

“The problem is that often the musicians on the covers don’t coincide with those who actually made the recordings, or only partly coincide,” explains Clark. “Many of these LPs were assembled from different sessions, often years apart and featuring different players.”

Clark has helpfully put together a list of recordings on which Mercado is known to have performed. The list appears at the end of his recent blog about Mercado and his Mariachi Extravaganza tribute, posted at Muñoz’ website, MariachiMusic.com.

Many of those albums are included among the band’s many recordings represented in the Frontera Collection, found under variations of the name Mariachi Vargas and/or Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.

A specific search in the Frontera database by the trumpeter’s name yields a list of seven tracks, all from the group’s 75th anniversary album, LXXV Aniversario (Arcano DKL1-3251), a collection of mariachi standards. This is the U.S. version of the same album originally released in 1973 by RCA Mexico (RCA Victor MKS-1977) and features a total of 11 tracks.

Since the tracks emphasize instrumentals, the virtuosity of individual musicians is clearly on display, such as on “Las Alazanas” or “Alma Llanera.” Here, Mercado shares trumpet credits with his longtime collaborator Federico Torres Martinez. The album frequently showcases their horn section, which was tight, bright, and memorably harmonious. Says Clark: “The combination of Federico Torres (on first) and Rigoberto Mercado (on second) was the most stable and enduring trumpet duet Mariachi Vargas has had to date.”

Interestingly, this album not only credits the musicians but shows their pictures on the back cover. On my private copy of the Mexican RCA release, the musicians’ portraits are arrayed along the edges and bathed in primary colors. Mercado’s pink picture shows him in a formal pose holding his trumpet, identified by his full name, Rigoberto Mercado Alvarez. His partner’s picture in blue is just below his.

In addition to being celebrated, at the Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza Mercado delivered a presentation during the Director’s Workshop, attended by mariachi directors from throughout the region. Appropriately, the title of his lecture was “Secretos a Voces: Frequently Overlooked Details that Distinguish a Superior Mariachi.”

One of those secrets, of course, is the unheralded sideman.

-Agustín Gurza