American Rock Band Los Lobos Will Perform at Kean University

American rock band Los Lobos will perform at Kean University on Saturday, February 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Wilkins Theatre, 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, New Jersey 07083.

The journey of Los Lobos began in 1973, when David Hidalgo (vocals, guitar, and pretty much anything with strings), Louie Perez (drums, vocals, guitar), Cesar Rosas (vocals, guitar), and Conrad Lozano (bass, vocals, guitarrón) earned their stripes playing revved-up versions of Mexican folk music in restaurants and at parties in East Los Angeles, California.

Early on, Los Lobos enjoyed critical success, winning the Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance for Anselma from its 1983 EP ...And a Time to Dance. A year later, the group released its full-length, major-label debut, How Will the Wolf Survive? Co-produced by Berlin and T Bone Burnett, the album was a college rock sensation that helped Los Lobos tie with Bruce Springsteen as Rolling Stone's Artist of the Year.

A major turning point came in 1987 with the release of the Ritchie Valens biopic, La Bamba. The quintet's cover of Valens' signature song topped the charts in the U.S. and the U.K. Rather than capitalizing on that massive commercial success, Los Lobos instead chose to record La Pistola y El Corazón, a tribute to Tejano and Mariachi music that won the 1989 Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance. That kind of sharp artistic turn has become Los Lobos' trademark, serving to both fuel the band's creativity and keep its fans engaged.

In 1992, their willingness to defy expectations led them to record Kiko, an adventurous album produced by Mitchell Froom that's considered by many to be one of the band's very best. Since then, Los Lobos has continued to deliver daring and diverse albums such as Colossal Head (1996), Good Morning Aztlán (2002), The Town and the City (2006), Tin Can Trust (2010) and Gates of Gold (2015). Mariachi Suite from the 1995 film Desperado -earned the band a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Los Lobos' album Native Sons (2021) returned the band to the Grammy winner's circle with Best Americana Album of 2022.

In 2023, Los Lobos will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a band, a rare and impressive feat, as the band continues its great legacy. The band's lasting impact will endure given how well its music embodies the idea of America as a cultural melting pot. In it, styles like son jarocho, norteño, Tejano, folk, country, doo-wop, soul, R&B, rock 'n' roll and punk all come together to create a new sound that's greater than the sum of its parts.

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