Los Lobos has covered some ground in their 40-plus years. From after-school barrio garage jam sessions to one of the biggest, most enough already smash singles of all time (“La Bamba”—maybe you’ve heard it); from Grateful Dead support to Disney homage; from folkloric Mexican wedding croonings in Los Angeles to touring on an officially sanctioned blues-rock Hendrix tribute; from sweaty Tex-Mex country, to the high-mindedness of the concept album. They’ve been on Sesame Street. They’ve also been through a murder (guitarist Cesar Rosas’ wife was killed by her half-brother), a public beef with Paul Simon (they helped on “Graceland”), and plenty of unfortunate misidentification with Los Lonely Boys. Throughout it all, Los Lobos has combined the hashtags of second and third generation American dreams, the everyday Chicano experience, and pure guitar heroism into maybe the greatest American Rock smorgasbord of the past few decades.
Here, the wolves come all the way back to the beginning. Si Se Puede was actually recorded in 1976 as a charity album of traditional music, with proceeds going toward the United Farm Workers of America. Two years before their first proper studio album, it is also deeply apropos of an album budding with “roots.”
The fiddle-heavy acoustic stylings and Español quickly indicate, from the trilling cry of “Aiiiyyyyyy!” on, how many miles they are from “Colossal Head.” But the stringy arrangements and soaring voices—an assortment of Mexican-American men’s, women’s and a children’s choirs—hint at a different kind of piquant harvest. “Yo Estoy con Chavez” shows the gang in barn-burning backup mode that continues throughout. “Mujeres Valientes” exists in a pastoral world that sounds not much removed from their Quinceanera days. “Manana is Now” feels like a roadside taqueria torchlight tune. Alongside the folk aesthetic, there’s still barrio backbone aplenty, with the whomping bass thump-thumping to traditional cumbia-bolero-norteno beats, causing listener shoulders to inevitably, subconsciously do that rolling, swaying thing.
It’s hard not to miss the buzz and drive of their Strats and Teles, or the voices—especially David Hidalgo’s Steve Winwood-cum-broken hearted bird that has become one of the best in the vocal game. But “Telingo Lingo” hints at things to come, burning with peppery dexterity, featuring the band in front, naked and raw, cutting loose, fast, and easy with an already impeccable, well-seasoned teamwork. Primo musicians still not even close to their prime, years from eschewing all genres to simply make their own.
Released in conjunction with Cesar Chavez Day and the new biopic on the late labor organizer, this could be taken as timely historical tribute, a political statement about the ceaseless and imaginary lines that make life so complicated for so many. Or it might be seen as a historical Rock time capsule in itself—tantamount to Greenwich Village-era Dylan, acid test-Dead, or beardless Willie Nelson. Then again, and more enjoyably, it could simply be taken as one of the spiciest, bounciest, Coronita-need-inducing grill-out soundtracks for the dog days of summer.
