Los Lobos

Los Lobos
Los Lobos performing at the White House in 2009
Background information
Origin	East Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Chicano rock, roots rock, Latin rock, Tex-Mex, Americana, heartland rock, cowpunk
Years active	1973–present
Labels	Warner Brothers, London, Mammoth, 429 Records
Associated acts	Latin Playboys, Los Super Seven
Website	www.loslobos.org
Members	David Hidalgo Louie Pérez Cesar Rosas Conrad Lozano Steve Berlin Enrique González
Past members	Francisco González

Los Lobos (pronounced: [los ˈloβos], Spanish for "the Wolves") are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American rock band from East Los Angeles, California, United States. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. They gained international stardom in 1987, when their cover version of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" topped the charts in the U.S., the UK and several other countries. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Vocalist and guitarist David Hidalgo and drummer Louie Pérez met at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, California, and bonded over their mutual affinity for obscure musical acts such as Fairport Convention, Randy Newman and Ry Cooder. Pérez recalls, "We’re looking at each other, 'You like this stuff? I thought I was the only weird one.' So I went over to his house one day for about a year, which we spent listening to records, playing guitars, and starting to write songs." The two borrowed reel-to-reel recorders from a friend and created multitrack recordings of music spanning from parody songs to free-form jazz. They later enlisted fellow students Cesar Rosas and Conrad Lozano to complete the group's lineup in 1973. Their first album, Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles, was recorded at two studios in Hollywood in 1977 over a period of about four months. At that time, they all had regular jobs, and it was hard to get together for the sessions. To accommodate that situation, their producer Louis Torres would call the engineer, Mark Fleisher, who owned and operated a high-speed tape duplicating studio in Hollywood, to find a studio when he knew all the band members could get off work that night. Most of the songs were recorded at a studio on Melrose Avenue, located next to the Paramount studios at the time, and a low-priced studio on Sunset Boulevard.