Thursday, June 6, 1996
Singer/songwriter brings talent to Freud this Saturday with
‘Cancion Mexicana’
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Lalo Guerrero’s van stalled at the top of a hill in San
Francisco and caused a half-mile long traffic jam, he didn’t
worry.
Instead, he hopped aboard a trolley and wrote a song about
it.
"My car waits there in San Francisco, down at the bottom of the
bay," he sings in his rich gravely voice, reciting a few lines from
his parody, "I Left My Car in San Francisco." "I won’t come back to
you, San Francisco. I’m gonna move to San Jose."
For Guerrero, all life experiences are potential material for
the songs he writes and performs. And after a sixty year career, he
has a vast volume of experiences to draw upon – from a date at a
Mexican restaurant to the civil rights efforts of Cesar Chavez.
Guerrero will give UCLA audiences a sampling of his work at the
Freud Playhouse Saturday during "Cancion Mexicana: A Celebration of
the Music of Lalo Guerrero."
Other notable contributors to the event include KTLA’s Carlos
Amezcua, Delores Huerta of the United Farm Workers and Consul
General of Mexico Jose Angel Pescador. On stage, Guerrero will be
joined by musical director Marcos Loya, a mariachi group, and
dancers performing a wide array of styles.
Guerrero owes much of his own musical style to his mother, an
immigrant who sang and played the guitar to entertain her young
son.
"My mom and dad came here from Mexico in 1911. At that time
there was no immigration problem," he says, offering a brief
history of his early years in the Southwest. "There was so much
country, it didn’t matter. My dad used to tell me he used to pay
two cents to cross the border."
As Guerrero grew older and America entered the Great Depression,
he had his first brush with the activism that would become a
trademark in many of his songs.
"Things were very, very bad economically for everybody but
specifically for the Hispanics and blacks and the poor barrios,"
Guerrero says. "I would try to write things that would uplift the
spirit and try to focus on positive things."
World War II, however, gave Chicanos a chance to share their
talents with mainstream America. As musicians in the United States
joined the war effort, record producers looked south of the
border.
"There was a great shortage of music for recording," Guerrero
explains. "The publishing companies, they sent people down to Latin
America to find pretty melodies … And that’s where we got a lot
of the big hits of the ’40s."
Ironically, the music Guerrero wrote during this time wasn’t
discovered until the 1980s, when playwright Luis Valdez approached
him in search of a score for "Zoot Suit."
At times, Guerrero waxes nostalgic for the Mexican music of the
past.
"In the old times, it was a lot prettier. It was a lot more
melodic. The lyrics were more poetic," he says. "It has evolved
into … a poor imitation of American music."
Reconciling Mexican and American cultures has always been an
important component of Guerrero’s career. In the 1960s, he joined
Cesar Chavez in the civil rights struggle, protesting injustices
through a series of ballads.
"It seemed as though they were drafting a lot more
Mexican-Americans than other ethnic groups, considering the
population," Guerrero says of the Vietnam War.
While Latinos were over-represented in the death toll, Guerrero
points out that they are now under-represented in the media.
"Our population has a tremendous economic voice. There’s
millions of Mexican-Americans," he says. "(But) you don’t see us on
television. You don’t see us in commercials. You don’t see a
Mexican-American brushing his teeth with Colgate, a Mexican lady
washing with Tide … We want to be part of America."
But Guerrero asserts that, "I didn’t want to be militant." For
this reason, many of his lyrics are humorous with an underlying
message.
Most recently, the songwriter has directed his talents towards
young Latinos in hopes that they will shun drugs and violence and
stay in school. He also wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Chicanos"
urging the Mexican-American population to voice their opinions in
elections.
"We tend to be very lazy when it comes to voting," Guerrero
says. "We don’t vote and then later we’re complaining. We’ve gotta
get out there and vote for the people that we think will help our
cause."
While Guerrero is an activist, he also derives many of his
humorous songs from his personal life.
"Before I got married, I got in a romantic mood. And then when
my divorce came twenty some years later, I wrote a couple of funny
songs that were inspired by that," he says.
"And when I got remarried, I got romantic again, and I’m still
married to the second one, so I don’t know what I’ll write if that
one fails. But it better not because she’s sitting right next to
me," he laughs. "(She’s) probably gonna punch me. No, at 80 I don’t
think I want to get punched."
But he does want to share his lifetime of knowledge with college
students. "I think what they’ll like is the music and everything
 the dancing and the comedy," Guerrero says of Saturday’s
performance.
"But I think that most of all what we like to instill in our
young people is confidence and the pride of their background."
MUSIC: "Cancion Mexicana" June 8 at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse 8 to
10 p.m. TIX: $10-40. For more information, call (310) 206-7411
Lalo Guerrero will perform this Saturday at the Freud
Playhouse.