Los Lobos, formed almost as a joke in 1973 in a basement in the notorious “Latino” district of Los Angeles, went on to become one of the most popular bands in the United States. These four Chicanos — the first to break through to white audiences since the days of Ritchie Valens (to whom they paid tribute with a rousing cover of La Bamba in 1987), and the first to rediscover the tradition of Doug Sahm and Flaco Jimenez — recycle an exuberant blend of rhythm and blues and tex-mex, alternating accordion and bajo sexto duets, such as the polka Let's Say Goodbye on their debut EP And A Time To Dance (Slash, 1983) or Corrida #1 on their first album How Will The Wolf Survive (Slash, 1984), with wild collective raids in 1950s style, from Evangeline to I Got To Let You Know. They resurrect the spirit of Howling Wolf on Don't Worry Baby, their first masterpiece, and embellish the record with the dark country ballad Will The Wolf Survive. The thunderous tenor of David Hidalgo, the explosive rhythms of drummer Louie Perez, and the blazing guitar flights of Cesar Rosas create an explosive mix.

With that first album Los Lobos earned the title of premier bar band of the 1980s. No small feat for a quartet of seasoned sons of immigrants who for years had been content to enliven weddings and dance halls. Their very first album, Just Another Band From East L.A. (New Vista, 1978), a collection of boleros and rancheras, had gone completely unnoticed.

Were it not for the devilish John Lee Hooker-style shuffle of Shakin' Shakin' Shakes (co-written with T-Bone Burnette), perhaps the absolute peak of their career, the follow-up By The Light Of The Moon (Slash, 1987), which had taken three years to complete, would have amounted to a disappointing “sell-out.” Too blatantly seeking the role of voice of working-class America through a sequence of “truth songs” aping country-rock (One Time One Night echoes Queen Of Hearts), Creedence Clearwater Revival (The Hardest Time), the Band (The Mess We're In) and Bruce Springsteen (River Of Fools), at the expense of lively numbers (only the mediocre Set Me Free), the album confirms the group’s stylistic eclecticism but cancels out their barrio effervescence, turning it into nostalgic, living-room narcissism.

The acoustic album sung in Spanish, La Pistola Y El Corazon (Slash, 1988), thus serves as a cathartic bath, allowing them to recover their roots and shake off the intoxication of success.

Not surprisingly, The Neighborhood (Slash, 1990) is the exact opposite: an electric work that could not be farther from their “Latin” roots. Yet the spirit is once again that of a bar band. If the fundamental inspiration remains the Southeast — as in the swampy gospel Down On The Riverbed, the Johnny Cash-style country parable Deep Dark Hole, the cajun waltz Giving Tree, and the folk-rock serenade Emily (the album’s lyrical peak) — the record is marked above all by Chicago electric blues: in I Walk Alone one seems to hear early Fleetwood Mac again; in I Can't Understand, Magic Sam and Robert Cray; and Mitch Ryder in the frenzied rhythm-and-blues dance Jenny's Got A Pony.
The milieu is the one they prefer: the suburban neighborhood crowded with drunks, junkies, petty criminals, betrayed lovers, and down-and-outs. The album’s only flaw is that it is too polished: the more the band perfects itself, the more it loses the vital energy that had made it a unique interpreter.

Kiko (Slash, 1992) marks their definitive maturity, with a sound that is even less kinetic and even more contemplative. Although Los Lobos remain above all sharp observers of neighborhood life, this is an introspective work, wrapped in an almost dreamlike atmosphere. If the Blasters have by now become the obligatory reference point for the (increasingly “adult”) sound, the Band is the equally obvious benchmark in terms of content. The execution (almost entirely acoustic) has reached manic levels of precision: Kiko And The Lavender Moon, for example, dances lightly with Duke Ellington–style orchestral harmonies, a cajun accordion, and a cumbia rhythm; Angels With Dirty Faces intertwines a distorted sitar with a trotting beat; the instrumental Arizona Skies is a poetic polka (with the maraca rhythm of Cecilia by Simon And Garfunkel) over which mandolin and guitar intone a lyrical melody in the style of La Bamba; and Saint Behind The Glass blends lively tex-mex guitar figures with psychedelic vocal harmonies. The references to New Orleans rhythm and blues are equally sophisticated (Dream In Blue sounds like a cross between Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Band), as are those to blues-jazz (the funereal Just A Man, driven by a somber piano phrase) and to country (Two Janes). Nor are there lacking a couple of martial, heart-on-sleeve ballads: Short Side Of Nothing and Reva's House. But the atmosphere is too restrained and too professional. In the end, only the skipping boogie of That Train That Don't Stop Here, the murky voodoo-funk of Wicked Rain, and the scorching rock and roll of Whiskey Trail manage to lift the record out of monotony. It is paradise for encyclopedists and rock connoisseurs, yet it continues to demonstrate that the “wolves” can only copy, not create. Their sound is almost too easy to “deconstruct,” to decode. Once again, the high point of the album lies instead in the lyrics, which continue to sing melancholically of the troubles of ordinary people. Hidalgo’s tragic tenor is placed at the service of a continuous lament.

The guitarist David Hidalgo, the drummer Louie Perez, and the producers Tchad Blake (bass) and Mitchell Froom (keyboards) also recorded an album under the name Latin Playboys (Slash, 1994), which is something of a surreal, domestic, lazy, and relaxed version of Kiko. All in all, it is also one of their most creative records. The sounds manage to add a metaphysical quality to the blues (Chinese Superprize, Forever Night Shade Mary). The album drifts toward mystical (Viva La Raza) and spectral (Same Brown Earth) moods that hardly relate to Los Lobos.

Still faithful to their caustic, fatalistic, and nostalgic social melodrama (“life is a fight and then you die,” says Don't Worry), Los Lobos represent better than any other Californian musician the myths and disillusions of the American Dream and the melting pot.

After the children's music of Papa's Dream (Music For Little People, 1995), Los Lobos returned with Colossal Head (Warner Bros, 1996), another album of lush arrangements and mellow melodies, a natural follow-up to Kiko that is ultimately as uneven as eclectic (jazz for Maricela, rock and roll for Mas Y Mas blues for This Bird's Gonna Fly).

Cesar Rosas released his first solo, Soul Disguise (Rykodisc, 1998), that marks a return to their original roots-rock and shows the influence of Blasters (Shack And Shambles, Little Heaven, Treat Me Right). David Hidalgo released Houndog (Legacy, 1998), an album of old-fashioned blues. But the main dish was the second Latin Playboys album, Dose (Atlantic, 1998), another complex sonic architecture layering electronic effects, guitar fuzzes, orchestral snippets, loops of exotic percussions, piano figures, eccentric keyboards. Evocative and witty, the sonic stew of salsa (Ironside), rock and roll (Paletero), funk (Locoman), rhythm and blues (Lemon 'N Ice) and, of course, tex-mex (Paula Y Fred) relies more on texture than on anything else. At the same time, it may not be a coincidence that the most memorable songs are also the most traditional, closer to Rosas' blues-rock than to the erudite producers' high-tech gumbo (Latin Trip, Tormenta Blvd). But then the instrumentals beat all the songs, gliding down from literally another dimention: the baroque, psychedelic scores of Fiesta Erotica and Nubian Priestess place Los Lobos firmly in modern classical and jazz territory.

Los Lobos finally returned with This Time (Hollywood, 1999), an infinitely minor work compared with the Latin Playboys' output. The party rave-ups (That's Why We Wish and Run Away With You) never sounded angrier and more adult, and one must credit the band for still identifying with the working class, but the ballads (Corazon and This Time) and the ethnic pieces (Cumbia Raza) could be from any of L.A.'s chicano bands.

Good Morning Aztlan (Mammoth, 2002) serves mostly atmospheric soft-rock for mainstream radio (Malaque), a trio of classic dejavus (the busy southern shuffle Done Gone Blue, The Big Ranch, reminiscent of the Band's first album, and What In The World, that steals the pace from The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the melody from What A Beautiful World This Would Be, and the saxophone line from Van Morrison's Moondance), but also one of their vibrant hispanic hoedowns (Good Morning Aztlan).

The Ride (Hollywood, 2004) doesn't bounce when it tries to (La Venganza De Los Pelados, Is This All There Is?) and mostly doesn't even try, preferring a laid-back pace (Rita). The only impressive thing is the cast: Garth Hudson, Richard Thompson, Ruben Blades, Tom Waits, etc.

The Los Lobos of The Town And The City (2006) have become masters of blue-collar melodrama with an adult, mature, passionate sound that runs the gamut from ditties like The Valley to humble epics like the seven-minute The Town.

That haunting and introspective style also permeated Tin Can Trust (2010), a collection of slow-tempo minor-key meditations that was closer in spirit to bedroom singer-songwriters than to roots-rock bands. When the songs are so uniformly mediocre, the verbose and lecturing tone is a mixed blessing.

Later albums include: Gates of Gold (2015), Llego' Navidad (2019), Native Sons (2021).