Perez penned “Native Son,” a song that serves as the spine for the band’s love letter to the music of Los Angeles. I said, ‘Wait, write a cover for our own covers record?’” After a session we were walking to our cars, and David suggested I write one for this record. When I first heard that, I had only heard that sort of thing in a short story or novel. And there was this sense it was more than just ‘boy meets girl.’ The Jackson Browne song, it was more abstract. “I came up like the guys listening to R&B and rock ’n’ roll bands like the Byrds who interpreted Bob Dylan. “Doing ‘Jamaica Say You Will,’ it opened my eyes to something - that I could write something really personal,” Perez continues. But more often the band has worked with original material with lyrics by multi-instrumentalist Louie Perez, who says on this album, “It was like I was out of a job.”īut when the band decided to record from its native Los Angeles, guitarist/singer David Hidalgo pushed Perez to write something for the record. Los Lobos has covered Mexican folk songs and Disney standards. Houston may make a fleeting appearance, too, with “Never No More,” a Percy Mayfield song co-credited to Don Malone, which tracks as a Don Robey alias. “Farmer John” is in the mix, as are songs by Lalo Guerrero (“Los Chucos Suaves”), Thee Midniters (“Love Special Delivery”), Buffalo Springfield (“Bluebird/For What It’s Worth”), the Beach Boys (“Sail on Sailor”), Jackson Browne (“Jamaica Say You Will”). The band that has long embraced the humble tag of “Just another band from East LA” has made a record that speaks to the sprawling and diverse environment of the city from which it came. The new “Native Sons” connects to that show in a way. Liner notes are increasingly a scarcity in music, but Chris Morris’ wonderful notes to the 2000 anthology “El Cancionero” discuss a revelatory moment in 1981 - following a disastrous gig - when the band covered the Premiers’ “Farmer John,” the ballad “Volver, Volver” and the Drifters’ doo-wop standard “Under the Boardwalk” to an audience that found the mix intoxicating. From covers of Mexican folk music to American blues to experimental rock, the group has survived from 1973 to 2021 by not sitting still. The group from East Los Angeles has endured and prospered for nearly a half century by trusting its chops and following its instincts.
Much like the lupine creature that lends the band its name, Los Lobos has proven an adaptable entity. Los Lobos is, from left, Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano, Steve Berlin, Louie Perez and David Hidalgo.
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