LOS LOBOS – "La Bamba"

More than most copycat covers, I find it hard to hear this without wishing it was the original. I miss the way Valens’ vocal fades in and out as if he is partying so hard he just can’t stand still for the two-and-a-bit minutes. Too much hod carrying by Los Lobos, who I tried hard to like when they were NME favourites circa ’85.

Nik Cohn reckons Valens had already cut ‘some of the direst records in rock’ when he died. Pffft!

I don’t find this that playful – if anything it’s too reverential. That may reflect it’s role within the film but I suspect is also the fruit of Los Lobos’ muso approach.
I like the song and I don’t mind it as much as some above but nor can I match Tom’s enthusiasm

Not so sure about ‘chops’ as Los Lobos do little more than extend Valens’ thrilling guitar solo by a few bars, add some accordion, and the admittedly pretty coda (but they lose the woodblock, damn them!). The original was intended as a b-side, to the rock-a-ballad Donna (a hit here for Marty Wilde). It ended up as a double A-side in the States, a rare state of affairs as Lena has mentioned on her blog.

Ricky Valance of Tell Laura I Love Her fame (Popular entry 107) half-inched his name from the unfortunate Richie V. I wonder if we’ll ever see a number one by Liz Lubos?

I remember Smash Hits printing a literal translation of the lyric which seemed quite hilarious at the time, but I’m afraid I don’t have it to hand.

Is there anything particularly Spanish about the guitar fade-out? It sounds more like standard classical guitar virtuosi stuff to me (e.g., like this). At any rate, I like that bit and the extended solo. The slightly boomy ’80s drums and the less croony vocal than the original, however, mean that the rest doesn’t do much for me. I’m somewhat shocked to discover that, overall, I’d rather hear La Isla Bonita than this. (Maybe some Tarantino gangsters should debate the point.) For me, a highish 5 or a lowish:
6

@7: But surely classical guitar is almost entirely Spanish (well, Moorish Spanish) in origin.

At any rate I’m told that the rhythm on the fadeout is a charanga, a Cuban folk dance derived from African and Spanish sources.

Los Lobos are one of my favorite bands, and I’ve often thought of them as being to rock & roll what Los Bros Hernandez are to comics: immensely accessible and thoughtful, with a focus on craftsmanship and describing the contours of lived experience that has ended up relegating them to a dedicated fanbase instead of transforming the field as critics in the 80s predicted.

As I said in my piece, this is my third-favorite “La Bamba,” after Valens’ “original” and Lila Downs’ mystic-folkloric version from her 2004 album Una Sangre (One Blood). But it’s still great, because it’s still “La Bamba,” which wherever I’ve lived has always meant a party.

loved the los lobos take on la bamba at the time but even at the time i was much more likely to want to hear the original (considering we’re still in the midst of ‘stand by me’, ‘unchained melody’, and other oldies popping up in the top 40 i’m curious if the original recharted). have always been curious about los lobos though, more from kiko and the lavendar moon (remember that being all over mtv) than this though.

i remember reading dylan somewhere claiming that ‘la bamba’ was a big inspiration for ‘like a rolling stone’ but i’ve never been able to hear it. however i DEFINITELY can hear the ‘la bamba’ in ‘twist and shout’.

7 for me.

My main memory of this is my Spanish teacher putting it on and dancing around the class. This is probably one of the reasons that I only remember about 5 words of Spanish now.
The song is a fairly average cover on the whole, but the two instrumental breaks are nothing short of spectacular.

Here’s a chicken and egg conundrum; what came first – “La Bamba” or “Louie Louie”? The latter chronologically came first – Richard Berry’s original version came out in 1957? – but the former seemed to influence the most famous version, as well as things like “Twist And Shout.”

Otherwise not much to say about this; a fine, vivid cover of a fine song from a not-actually-that-bad biopic by an extremely underrated band who happily continued to score in the Pazz & Jop polls for many years with many inventive albums, long after their brief honeymoon with the 1985 British music press.

Nothing much to add, other than this is the first of 3 forays into movie soundtracks. The other 2 being “Mariachi Suite” for Robert Rodriguez’ Desperado and a cover of “Billy 1” for the Dylan film I’m Not There.

In the second half of 1987 the Australian charts were almost wholly dominated by just three number ones, the last of which we’ll encounter soon enough at Popular and the first of which we won’t (but whose artist we will next year). In between was this, number one for seven weeks, and certainly my memory of “La Bamba” was that you couldn’t go anywhere for months without hearing it. There have been worse monster hits, though; I didn’t buy the song, but didn’t mind it at all, and it’s stood the test of time very well. I wouldn’t quite go to 8, but it’s a comfortable 7. Never heard the Valens version, but it sounds as if I should. [Edit: Just did. Not bad, but I prefer this one.]

my spanish class were adamant that our teacher tell us what “la bamba” meant, refusing to accept his explanation that it’s just the name of a dance, that there is no translation – “it just means ‘la bamba!!'” he practically cried in frustration, and we did too, in return: “but what does ‘la bamba’ mean???!?!?”

Not wanting to provoke the bunny, but the next number one may qualify as the “Baby Jump” of the eighties (did someone say that about “My Camera Never Lies”? Tshaw! Must go back and look that up…).

Yeah @ that link — this version fleshes out the orig.

Although I quite like the film, not that I’d ever have high expectations but I always have it as retread of that biopic of Buddy Holly. In the BH pic there is a FANTASTIC scene of his first major gig with the unifying the room thing.

I heard Steve Wright’s radio show yesterday, it was almost exactly the same as his old Radio 210 show (1976 or thereabouts), same records etc.

Two ace pieces of casting in the film were Marshall Crenshaw and Brian Setzer as Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran respectively.

La Bamba was the sum total of my knowledge on Los Lobos until this last Monday when I saw them in support of Neil Young & Crazy Horse at the O2. As a consequence, I was expecting some light, fun, latin inflected pop-rock.

What I got was an obviously technically accomplished but nevertheless lumpen bar band, bashing out a load of pretty straightforward tunes. I can’t name any of them, due to my lack of knowledge of their catalogue, but there was one tune where they did the muso-showcasing of each band members particular talents and it was all sadly predictable. I was hoping I would get something to inspire a search into their career. But I didn’t. What latin pop-rock should I be seeking out then, given I have little to no knowledge of the genre?

They did do La Bamba though, at the end of their set. It was a different arrangement and it reminded me of nothing so much as The Stones’ tackling “Like A Rolling Stone” rather than the track that got to #1, which I still reckon is a decent, lightweight, enjoyable thrash through the original, with a nice bit of Spanish guitar at the end. I was a bit disappointed.

Critic watch:

Life (USA) – 40 Years of Rock & Roll, 5 Songs for Each Year 1952-91 (Updated 1995)
Theater van het Sentiment, Radio 2 (NL) – Top 40 Songs by Year 1969-2000 (2013) 40
Al Borde (USA) – The 500 Most Important Songs of Ibero-American Rock (2006) 301
VH1 Latin America (“North”) – The 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s (2007) 23
Grammy Awards (USA) – Record of the Year Nominee
Village Voice (USA) – Singles of the Year 3
Rock de Lux (Spain) – Songs of the Year 32

Re 35 – is this song *not* listed as one of the 10,001 tracks I must download?! Did the author mention why not?