Why the Wolf Has Survived

                                                                                     

Not everyone chooses the road less taken

      Surviving modern times is a theme that runs through Michael Sedano’s January 2nd, La Bloga post. In a “photo essay,” Michael has photographed a series of murals on a wall in Happy Valley, one in particular, La Virgen de Guadalupe, he calls, simply, “Lupe.” Unfortunately, making way for a new home, a developer’s sledgehammers and bulldozers destroyed Lupe’s image, but what about the survival of the neighborhood, the people, the culture; will they survive the onslaught of progress?

     Reminds me of Los Lobos’ song, “Will the Wolf Survive?” which, for me, is a Chicano masterpiece, and captures the essence of “survival,” not only the survival of a Chicano band, which guitarist Louie Perez told an interviewer, inspired the song. To me, Los Lobos' song raises larger issues, like a culture’s survival, or the survival of individuals in their own land. You know, the old adage, “the border crossed us.”

     I don’t use the word masterpiece lightly. That’s why I inserted, “for me,” as in “my opinion,” or “the way I see it.” Songs, like poems, stories, paintings, or any art form, are personal. They affect each of us differently. That’s why I say “Chicano” masterpiece. It affects me as a “Chicano,” a mestizo, hijo de mestizos. I’m not sure other ethnicities or cultures understand the song the way Chicanos do, or, at least, should, if one listens to the lyrics carefully. Of all their songs, it’s the one that resonates with me, and each year, as I grow older, I think about my own survival and what it means, as we all should, like Socrates said, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living.”

     Los Lobos wrote the song thinking about their own survival, as professional musicians, in a brutal industry that doesn’t understand the nuances of culture, unless it earns money, gobs of it. In that world only the money matters. Some could argue that the money-makers are only the best musicians and the best songwriters. They survive, which isn't true. There are many mediocrities surviving in the music business in a myriad of ways, like having the right connections.

     If most don’t survive, it isn’t because the entertainment industry doesn’t understand them, it’s that the people who buy music don’t understand or connect with them, which may be true, but for a wolf, with “hunters hot on his trail” and “all odds…against him,” he knows he has a “family to provide for,” and he must summon the strength in his arms and legs to keep going, to survive.

     Los Lobos album, Will the Wolf Survive reached number 431 on the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time. That may sound low, 431, but consider, the tens of thousands of albums released over the years, so to even make the list of 500 is an accomplishment, the sustenance needed to survive, and the wolf is surviving, but for how long? As a band, Los Lobos is still out there, “running across frozen lakes in the chill of winter,” still beating the odds.

    It reminds me of myself and many friends who have confessed to surviving life’s struggles, as individuals, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and working professionals, often seeing themselves as poseurs, on a stage, playing a role, masquerading as teachers, lawyers, doctors, and business people in a foreign world, sometimes the first in their families, or culture, to hold such positions, with the fear of being “found out,” hunted down and exposed as phonies, while performing like experts. The unconscious our worst enemy.

     Yet, we survive, through good and bad times, often too hard on ourselves, especially when we see others getting the breaks, the jobs, the promotions, the accolades and, often, for doing less work, a poor job, beneficiaries of an unjust society, a leg up through nepotism, or just being the "favored son." Like Los Lobos’ wolf, we find ourselves dejected, “drifting by the roadside,” and as the years pass, giving it everything, only to see “lines etched on an aging face,” and all we wanted was to earn “an honest pay,” like our parents taught us, to work hard, to earn respect, and sometimes we win, we triumph against the odds, yet in the larger picture, it seems that we are “losing the range war,” but we keep fighting, winning the immediate battles. We don’t falter, we use our strength and our wits to move forward, to survive.

     I can see how a band, starting with four kids from East L.A., survived, and performed with some of the biggest musicians in the business, monsters like of Carlos Santana, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, yet still wondering, if they’ll survive the next year, the next album, the next tour.

    There are times, for many of us, as we age, mature, and gain experience, the world still seems overwhelming, and we aren’t sure if we can make it through another year, another day, or even another hour. It’s as if we’re “standing in the pouring rain/ alone in a world that’s changed,” and at its worst, we find ourselves “running scared…forced to hide,” and the supreme irony, “in a land where we once lived with pride.” Then, when the situation appears dire, we return to our roots, family lessons, education, and training, and we know, we will “find our way…through the morning light.” It’s in our genes, the “cockroach people”, the survivors, as writer Oscar Acosta calls us.

     Now, in my seventies, as I look back on my life, over the mountains, hills, and valleys, the challenges I’ve faced, lost, won, and, yes, survived, a larger picture emerges, bigger than myself, a message for everyone, what I, and we, have hoped to convey to the next generation, that they hear, “Sounds across the nation/ coming from young hearts and minds,” even if played on “battered drums and old guitars,” if we’ve done it right, followed the best of what our ancestors taught us, they will “Sing songs of passion,” and most importantly, know “It’s the truth that they all look for/ something they must keep alive,” if we/ they are to survive.

     As the New Year approached, I heard a song by Tierra on the radio. The DJ said it was from the Latin Legends album. The song kind of got me into the East L.A. Tierra-El Chicano-Midniter groove. I hadn’t listened to the music in a long time, and I thought it would be a good way to start the new year, going back to the past. So, I keyed Latin Legends into my Spotify. Then, I thought, what does that even mean, Latin Legends?

     Legend is a big word, right? So, what is a Latin Legend, the biggest Latino bands? The first Latin Legend to pop up was Malo, playing their hits, of course Suavecito, Nena, and Café. Then came songs by Tierra, El Chicano, Thee Midniters, War, Little Joe, even the Intruders, Zap, Roger, and the Gap Band, all Latin Legends? Okay, so Latin Legends aren’t only Latino/Chicano bands. How can that be?

     Eric Burdon of the English band the Animals, brought War, an African American band to the world’s attention. Not Latinos, nor is Roger, or Zap or the Gap Band. I guess one can argue Chicanos, of a certain age and persuasion, devour their music, but it doesn’t answer the question, if Latin Legends aren’t bands with Chicano/Latino musicians, what, then? Is it about the music that is legendary to Latinos? As I listened, I realized not all the songs were Latin/Chicano songs. Some were straight-up, Oldies, often written by Anglo writers out of New York and performed by African American “doo wop” singers but beloved by a certain segment of Chicanos and Latinos, not all, of course. Then, what is a Latin Legend? Who decides? I’m guessing an algorithm of the most listened to music by Latino/Chicanos.

     Okay, but what about Los Lobos, Ritchie Valens, Brat, Ozomatli, the Blazers, Delgado Brothers, Lila Downs, Café Tacuba, Cypress Hill, or other classic Chicano/Latino bands, nowhere to be found on Latin Legends? How can Los Lobos, the most popular and prolific Chicano band in rock history, going back to their first album, A Time to Dance (1983) not be included as a Latin Legend, this band that, like the wolf, has survived, and beaten all the odds?

     Is it about genre, a five-piece, electric guitar-driven rock-country-blues-norteno band not fitting in to the Latin-rock mold of El Chicano, Malo, or Santana, or out of sinc with the Oldies classic style of Tierra or Thee Midniters, who tend to cover old, sometimes classic love songs, the kind many Chicanos love swaying to in the heart of Aztlan? Mostly, Los Lobos write their own songs, no easy feat, like the Eagles, Crosby, Stills, Young and Young, the Mavericks, or the Zac Brown Band. When I first saw them at a club in Hollywood, back in 1983, introduced by the Blasters, then again in ’85, ’87, through the 90s and into the 2000s, they played to a packed-houses, mostly Anglo hipster/punk crowds, who loved jumping around to the band’s rancheras, not many Chicanos in the audience or on the dance floor. As the years passed, I noticed more Chicanos, rockabilly Latinos, attending their concerts.

     The band had taken a more circuitous musical route, not so linear as other bands. With each album and with each performance, Los Lobos might give an audience a different sound, a different feel, maybe straight-up rock ‘n roll, maybe nortenas, maybe a nod to the classics that inspired them. One never knew for sure. And it didn’t always work, but when it did, its fans were in for a treat, like with Kiko. They were edgy and took chances, unlike other Chicano bands that played it safe, sticking to fan favorites. Los Lobos avoided what Rick Nelson called a garden party route, when he proclaimed, “If memories are all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.”

     Could it be, like the wolf architype, Los Lobos looked for survival on different road, no big Latin percussion section, no horns, other than Steve Berlin's sax, and no derivative Oldie covers. They did it more along the lines of Frank Sinatra "doing it his way," or a Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/ and I took the one less travelled/ that has made all the difference.” 

     They may not be on Spotify’s Latin Legends algorithm, but they are on a personal algorithm, one they’ve created for themselves, and still surviving, a message to rest of us: to be ourselves, looking for the truth to keep us alive -- always on the road to survival, a tribute to those who came before us, and for those who follow.