"Bobby Espinosa dies at 60; keyboardist for 1970s Latin soul band El Chicano -El Chicano's sound blended funk, jazz, rock and R&B. The East L.A. group had top-40 hits in the '70s with 'Viva Tirado' and 'Tell Her She's Lovely.'
March 01, 2010By Claire Noland, Times staff writer, Randy Lewis contributed to this report. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/01/local/la-me-bobby-espinosa2-2010mar02
From NPR's blog, there's an obituary, "Requiem For A Latin Pioneer: Bobby Espinosa," by Felix Contreras, http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2010/03/requiem_for_bobby_espinosa.html that includes their big recording "Viva Tirado," written by bandleader Gerald Wilson, a big band favorite and a big name in music. I heard that song played by The Gerald Wilson Big Band at a jazz concert in MacArthur Park as a Playboy Jazz Festival pre-event to promote jazz. It was before that park became a haven for crime- and Wilson introduced the song, as I remember it, "This was done by some Mexican boys who became famous with it, but I wrote it," I do think he was just a little annoyed about how that worked out. That same concert included Poncho Sanchez and my neighbor down the street played trombone with that band but I only found that out from seeing my neighbor's kid hanging around. Sure enough, he was up there later with Poncho Sanchez and the rest of the band.
The YouTube videos in that blog posting have some good sound with the second song, "Cubano Chant," really providing a good demonstration of Espinosa's talent on the keyboards at such a young age, and at this time he was no more than 20 years old- (I know because we have the same year of birth, 4 months difference, and at the time this album came out in January 1970 I was just a junior in college with another year to go ) and I played that album whenever I got a chance. I still have it. There were not too many recordings of any local flavor at that time and that was O.K. since this band was very good.
In a review from the L.A. TImes from almost two years ago, there is a pretty informative review on the band before it was to perform at the Greek Theater in the annual "Latin Legends Live" event with El Chicano, War and Tierra on the bill.
"El Chicano recaptures magic," MUSIC REVIEW-May 27, 2008 Agustin Gurza, Times Staff Writer http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/27/entertainment/et-chicano27 You could tell Gurza is a fan and fills in a little more history of this and the other bands. I really don't know if Tierra was a "spinoff" off El Chicano as a different writer, not Gurza, described the chronology. I haven't seen the either of the Salas Brothers for a long time to see if that matches their recollection. I do see Bobby Navarrete from the original "Tierra" group (all these Lincoln alumni are found everywhere) a little more frequently and might ask him. He was the one who told his brother of the passing of Bobby Espinosa and I found out that way at a family event on Monday. Bobby Espinosa's health was declining but he was still performing with the band until recently, I was told.
I am adding an item about Ersi Arvizu, the female singer that was on that "Viva Tirado" album singing "Sabor a Mi" so memorably. From the L.A. Times, "CULTURE MIX -
"Finding her voz again - Ry Cooder coaxes El Chicano's Ersi Arvizu back from a long break." May 03, 2008 Agustin Gurza, Times Staff Writer
[correction: Ersi Arvizu's outstanding vocal performance of "Sabor A Mi" was on their next album, "Revolucion," where you can find a whole new set of songs, with an enjoyable treatment of the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar." r.g.]
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/03/entertainment/et-culture3 This was also written by Gurza at the same time period and there's a lot here, including comment by Bobby Espinosa that bears out the quality of all. There's mention in one of these articles about how there is just not a lot of the Eastside bands around now. I don't think that's any mystery. That's something that I think has to do with rap music which is to me something that omits the part where you have musicians in the group. But that's my opinion and if it were the popular one, you sure wouldn't have a lot of wealthy rappers. But the old school groups were something to relish in those days.
Like a lot of things with local Latinos, we always have some contact with people who worked with or are related to others of celebrity status. And so it was with Ersi Arvizu that one relation, a very nice woman and friend, worked with me and my wife for years, along with about another hundred people including the future L.A. Mayor, and the future husband of Spvr. Molina ( small world for L.A. Latinos), and this friend passed away many years ago at a very young age. It's interesting to me how music can trigger a lot of recollections and feelings of all sorts in most people, especially as you get older and have new experiences.
Actually, El Chicano was less of the legacy brand of music from the Eastside and more of a new style band, emerging as a commercially successful entity onto the pop scene as the 7o's began. It was a very good sound and one very good guitarist I came to know about 13 years ago, had a band that played "Tell Her She's Lovely" incredibly faithful to the originally produced El Chicano version. His band played songs in their original forms, that was their special talent, and they in the band all had good voices, too, but it goes to show how some songs were so well liked by so many.
I never knew the band members in El Chicano personally but I did see them play on occassion and I always enjoyed their songs and their sound, a big part of which was created by Bobby Espinosa. El Chicano came out at a time when, politically and socially, things were changing for a minority that had long been in the background of society and the boldness of the name chosen for this band brought out a new kind of prideful feeling just as the younger Mexican Americans were becoming attached to that identity. I am not sure exactly what impact this band had as far as movements go, but it was definitely significant even if it cannot be reduced to some tangible concept at this moment. And that's why I choose to recognize Espinosa and the band in this small way as he has left them and us, but like all musicians, the recordings they left will keep their memory constantly with us.
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Ed. Note:
[Since the posting yesterday, I found a web site that's grown a bit since the last time I checked it, I guess a longer time ago than I thought. If anyone would like to explore more of the music of the Eastside and the people that made it, Mark Guerrero's web site has a tremendous amount of information with bio pages on El Chicano and Ersi Arvizu. Mark is also a musician with roots in the Eastside and the son of Lalo Guerrero, another Latin Legend in his own right. http://markguerrero.net/ ]
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