Los Lobos - 50th Anniversary Tour

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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Los Lobos

The Grammy-winning group Los Lobos celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. In 1973, original members David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas and Conrad Lozano began their career playing revved-up versions of Mexican folk music in restaurants and at parties. The band evolved in the 1980s as it tapped into L.A.’s burgeoning punk and college rock scenes, adding saxophonist Steve Berlin in 1984 and releasing its full-length, major-label debut, How Will the Wolf Survive?, which was co-produced by Berlin and T Bone Burnett. The album helped Los Lobos tie with Bruce Springsteen as Rolling Stone’s Artist of the Year.

A major turning point for the group came in 1987 with the release of the Ritchie Valens biopic "La Bamba." The quintet’s cover of Valens’s signature song of the same name topped the charts in the U.S. and the U.K. Los Lobos followed this success with the release of their 1988 album La Pistola y El Corazón, which won a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance. Since then, the band has released more than a dozen full-length studio albums and many contributions to tribute albums and film soundtracks. Their song "Mariachi Suite" from the 1995 film "Desperado," earned the band a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Los Lobos’ 2021 album, Native Sons, is a love letter to the city of Los Angeles and returned the band to the Grammy winner’s circle with Best Americana Album of 2021.

Los Lobos is featured in the museum’s current exhibition Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock, presented by City National Bank.