Utente:Drumstian/Sandbox

Il Latin Rock è un genere rock eseguito da gruppi americani messicani (Chicano) derivante dallo stile Chicano. Il Chicano Rock, non si riferisce ad un unico stile. Molti di questi gruppi non cantano solo in spagnolo, e non usano solo specifici strumenti Latino Americani. Il principale fattore unificante è una forte influenza R&B e un approccio indipendente e ribelle nel fare musica al di fuori delle regole dell'industria musicale.

Ci sono due correnti nel Chicano rock. Una è orientata verso il puro rhythm and blues e il country, le radici del rock 'n' roll. Ritchie Valens, Sunny and the Sunglows, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Thee Midniters, Los Lobos, Malo, War (band),Tierra, e El Chicano hanno tutti fatto musica basata sul R&B degli anni 50.

Un altra caratteristica è l'apertura verso gli stili e i ritmi Latino Americani. Trini Lopez, Santana, Malo, ed altri gruppi 'Latin Rock' seguirono questo stile, una fusione tra jazz, R&B e suoni e ritmi caraibici;

Il musicista pioniere piu celebrato del Latin Rock fu Ritchie Valens che mori giovane. Canzoni come Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs "Wooly Bully" e Question Mark & the Mysterians' "96 Tears". "Tequila!" fu scritta e cantata dal sassofonista Danny Flores ed eseguita da The Champs. Flores, che mori nel Settembre 2006, e conosciuto come "The Godfather of Latin Rock."^[1]

Gruppi come Ozomatli e Quetzal hanno guidato la nuova onda dei gruppi Latin Rock che hanno fuso piu generi musicali.

In posti come Los Angeles, l'area della baia di San Francisco, e le città di Dallas e Houston, Texas, the African-American audience was very important to aspiring Latino musicians, and this kept their music wedded to authentic R&B. Undoubtedly, many listeners in the 1960s heard Sunny and the Sunglows "Talk to Me", or Thee Midniters'and more famously, Cannibal and the Headhunters' "Land of a Thousand Dances" and assumed that the groups were black. Dick Hugg and KRLA 1110 played a big role in promoting this music.

The roots of Chicano rock are found in the music of Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero ("The Father of Chicano Music") Tosti's "Pachuco Boogie," recorded in 1949 was the first Chicano million-selling record, a swing tune featuring a Spanish rap, using hipster slang called "Calo." Guerrero also adapted swing and "jump" styles to Spanish language recordings -- all this as rhythm and blues was beginning to emerge as a forerunner to rock 'n' roll. In the 60s there was an explosion of Chicano rock bands in East Los Angeles. One of the first to have a local hit, and even appear on Dick Clark, was The Premiers, with a cover of a Don and Dewey song called "Farmer John." It featured the beat from the popular hit, "Louie, Louie," which was in turn based on a Latino song, "Loco Cha Cha."

In the early to mid 1960s, the American audience was probably more open to Latin sounds than even today; because of the popularity of bossa nova, bugalú, mambo, and other forms. Also musicians who didn't conform to the rather limited range of early rock could find success as folk performers.

Trini Lopez, whose music was a mixture of folk, lounge pop, and R&B, was able to prosper before the Beatles came to America and Bob Dylan went electric. "Corazón de Melón" takes a Mexican folk tune, and like "Heart of my Heart", makes it into a relaxed, shuffling lounge tune. Trini mainly worked and recorded in a live setting (with a lot of audience participation), and soon the Beatles and The Beach Boys made studio recording effects dominant in rock, unfortunately making Trini's loose, breezy live-in-club style seem old fashioned all too soon.

The British Invasion challenged all American musicians, not just Chicanos. The Sir Douglas Quintet is said to have made the most 'English' sounding American music of the Beatlemania period (actually since the English were playing music that was more rooted in R&B than many white Americans of that time, the Quintet were actually sounding 'English' by keeping to an all-American R&B/Country sound). Indeed, producer Huey P. Meaux put the Sir in the group's name to emphasize the connection, but that was more a marketing change than a musical one.

While none of these groups challenged the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for more than a brief time, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and Thee Midnighters made music that was more like that of the British groups than many other American bands, like The Lovin' Spoonful or The Beach Boys. Part of this was their love of pure R&B, and perhaps, in spite of being just as American as anyone else, these bands were treated as "outsiders" to some degree and their music reflects this unconventional point of view. Also, many of these groups produced music on a very low budget, often working on small labels, or even self-producing music; giving some of their work a rougher feel.

Chicano punk is a branch of Chicano rock with bands like Los Illegals, The Brat, The Plugz and the Cruzados coming out of the punk scene in Los Angeles. The rock band ? Mark and the Mysterians, which was comprised primarily of Mexican American musicians, was the first band to be described as "punk rock." The term punk rock was reportedly coined in 1971 by rock critic Dave Marsh in a review of their show for Creem magazine.^[2] Recent Chicano punk bands include No Church on Sunday, Golpe De Estado, FISHHEAD, Thee Looters, No Mind Asylum, Peace Pill, Butt Acne, Plain Agony, The Tumors, and Union 13, from the streets of East Los Angeles; as well as Los Crudos from Chicago. Chicago's Pilsen & Little Village area has a vibrant chicano punk scene, with bands such as Eske, Sin Orden, and Ultratumbados.

Many popular Chicano and Chicano-led Rock bands began to emerge during the mid and late 90s such as Rage Against the Machine, Deftones, Downset, Spineshank, At the Drive-In, P.O.D., Fenix TX, Unloco, Union 13, Voodoo Glow Skulls, MxPx, Mento Buru, Adema, Los Lonely Boys, Aztlan Underground,Ozomatli and The Latin Soul Syndicate. In the early 2000s the Progressive Latin-influnced rock band The Mars Volta came onto the scene.

• Loza, Steven Joseph, Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American music in Los Angeles, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1993, 0-252-06288-4.
• Monsalvo, C. Sergio, La canción del inmigrante: de Aztlán a Los Lobos, Tinta Negra, México, D.F., 1989, 968-6336-01-X.
• Reyes, David, and Waldman, Tom, Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano rock 'n' roll from Southern California, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque [N.M.], 1998, 0-8263-1929-7.

• articles on Chicano Rock, su markguerrero.net., Guerrero, Mark, 2004. URL consultato l'8 luglio 2008.
• Producer of Chicano Rock documentary, su wildman.com, Wildman, 2004. URL consultato l'8 luglio 2008.