La Bamba

A modest hit for Ritchie Valens in 1959, "La Bamba" is a traditional Mexican folk song popular at weddings and other celebrations. When Los Lobos recorded it for the 1987 biopic about Valens, their version became a massive hit and popularized the song with a new generation. Based in Los Angeles, Los Lobos formed in 1973 and released their first major-label album in 1984, which earned critical acclaim and a following for the band on the West Coast. When we spoke with their founding member Louie Perez in 2012, he explained: "The reason why we got involved in the first place is because we were asked by the Valens family if we would do this. It came from his mom and his sisters who had to give their blessing to the filmmaker and director to make this movie. They said, 'We want Los Lobos to do it.' By then we had picked up a little speed. We had a couple of critically acclaimed records, and we had a couple songs that were played on the radio, but no big hit. So for us it was doing it for them and for the legacy of this young Chicano kid who really pioneered. I mean, how bold was it back then in 1959 to take a Mexican song and make it into a rock tune, rock arrangement, and sing it in Spanish? That was pretty damn brave."

This was the first #1 US hit with lyrics that were entirely in Spanish.

Los Lobos write their own songs and cross many musical genres, so when "La Bamba" became their best-known work, it put them at risk for typecasting. "We didn't want to slick our hair back and wear puffy sleeves," said their guitarist Cesar Rosas. Making sure they followed their own path, they used the financial windfall to finance an album of traditional Mexican songs called La Pistola y el Corazón, which was released in 1988. Louie Perez explained: "How we redirected that frustration was to do something that was completely different. Different than would be expected of a band who just had a huge hit. We didn't want to chase that hit, come up with 'La Bamba #2.' So we put out a record of traditional Mexican music with a couple of original songs on it that we wrote, something we'd always wanted to do. I remember after that record was released, journalists from all over were writing how Los Lobos committed commercial suicide, and I think to some degree it was true; we threw this wrench in this machine and brought it back to what we were all about."