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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Father of Chicano music’ dies at age 88


Lalo Guerrero, 87, plays his guitar at his home in Cathedral City, Calif., in November.
 (File/Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. – Lalo Guerrero, the man known as the “father of Chicano music,” has died, his family announced Thursday.

The 88-year-old Guerrero, named a “National Folk Treasure” by the Smithsonian Institution – an influence on Latino artists ranging from Paul Rodriguez to Los Lobos and a friend of labor hero Cesar Chavez – died at Vista Cove convalescent home in Rancho Mirage.

Former President Bill Clinton recognized Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero Jr. as the father of Chicano music.

Guerrero was given the Presidential Medal of the Arts by Clinton in 1997. Sixty years earlier, Guerrero had written a song called “the unofficial national anthem of Mexico,” “Cancion Mexicana.”

Guerrero was a singer-songwriter of remarkable range and a social conscience for his people and community.

In the Coachella Valley, where he lived from 1973, he was best known as a song parodist. He had gained national mainstream attention in 1955 for a parody of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” and he had performed witty takeoffs of other popular tunes for 23 years at Las Casuelas Nuevas in Rancho Mirage.

Guerrero also chronicled Hispanic-related social issues with parodies such as “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Busboys” and “No Chicanos On TV,” which launched a movement by the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts to hire more Hispanic actors on TV.

But he also wrote socially significant corridos, or Mexican folk ballads, such as “El Corrido de Robert Kennedy” and “El Corrido de Cesar Chavez.”

Chavez, the late Hispanic labor icon, said in a 1992 tribute to Guerrero, “Lalo has chronicled the events of the Hispanic in this country a lot better than anyone.”

Guerrero was revered by Hispanic stars of several generations. Comics Paul Rodriguez and Cheech Marin, actor Edward James Olmos and members of Los Lobos worked with him not just because of his social conscience, but because they grew up with his children’s music.

Guerrero created the singing cartoon characters, Las Ardillitas (little squirrels), in Mexico the same year Ross Bagdasarian conceived his Alvin and the Chipmunks in the United States. He recorded 40 albums in 22 years with his Spanish-speaking squirrels, and a generation of Hispanic children from North to South America grew up with them.

Guerrero was well-known in East Los Angeles even before he became socially significant. While “Cancion Mexicana” was being played by most mariachi groups in the post-World War II era, Guerrero was appearing in East Los Angeles ballrooms and nightclubs with a trio or a mambo orchestra, and also as a solo artist, and recording hundreds of diverse Spanish-language songs. His own Lalo’s nightclub was an East Los Angeles magnet in the 1960s.

He wrote several Pachuco songs after the war for the Los Angeles hipsters who wore zoot suits and danced the jitterbug. But these songs, which fused boogie-woogie and El Paso-based R&B, became even more popular 20 years later when writer-director Louis Valdez used them in his 1978 Broadway musical, “Zoot Suit.” That led to a re-evaluation of Guerrero as an important Hispanic songwriter.

The honors and demands for his time became so great after “Zoot Suit,” Guerrero quit his Las Casuelas job and began touring internationally. But he never stopped helping his community.

Guerrero performed big ticket benefits at the McCallum Theatre for College of the Desert, and played almost weekly at elementary schools, and youth and senior centers.

He had a reputation for being unable to say no to a charity request, and he never charged for a benefit appearance.

Palm Springs businessman Tony Aguilar may have put it best at the unveiling of Guerrero’s spot on the Walk of Stars.

“To honor Lalo,” he said, “is to honor the arts and the Hispanic community, to both of which he has devoted his life.”