Guitar Legend Ry Cooder Joins Latina Singer Ersi Arvizu in San Jose Concert

Ry Cooder, named by Rolling Stone and just about anyone who knows anything about the guitar as one of the top ten best original guitarists of all time, makes a rare live appearance in San Jose on Friday, September 26, backing popular ‘60s and ‘70s Latina singer Ersi Arvizu, who had virtually disappeared off the radar screen in the intervening decades. Arvizu’s big voice is now back and can be heard in a new CD produced by Cooder, who is credited with her rediscovery and coaxing her back into the musical limelight.

Born in Los Angeles, Cooder was known for years as the go-to session guitarist. He was especially sought out for his distinctive slide guitar technique. He regularly worked with the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, Randy Newman and a host of other top acts. He has also composed some very good original soundtracks, including Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, one of the very best movie soundtracks ever. As a recording artist in his own right, he is known for his musicological approach in seeking out, incorporating and synthesizing the roots music of many world cultures into his own idiosyncratic style, such as in his CDs Into the Purple Valley and Talking Timbuktu. In recent years he has been involved in the presentation of Cuban music and was responsible for producing the music for the huge 1999 Wenders film hit, Buena Vista Social Club, for which he won another Grammy.

In 2005, Cooder set out to record a CD titled Chavez Ravine, a tribute to the Mexican-American culture of that area of Los Angeles that was lost when it was torn down to make room for Dodger Stadium in the early 1960s. In his usual fashion, Cooder sought out East L.A. performers who could help him get the sound that he had in mind, including the Latin rock band El Chicano, whose Latin/rock/jazz sound had been popular in the ‘70s and was still around, and El Chicano’s former lead singer, Ersi Arvizu, who had disappeared and took some time for him to find.

East L.A.-born Arvizu came to public attention in the ‘60s when she toured with her two sisters in a band called “The Sisters,” appearing on bills with Ike and Tina Turner and other big headliners. She went on to join El Chicano, and toured the world with the popular band. She sang their hit at the time, “Sabor a Mi,” a song many here in San Jose will remember. Soon afterwards, Arvizu left the band and moved to Arizona, where she gave up her professional music career, got into boxing and drove a FedEx truck. Fast-forward nearly thirty years to 2004 when Cooder discovered her and her voice alive and well, rehearsing in an East L.A. studio for an El Chicano reunion, and signed her up for his Chavez Ravine project. He explained the qualities in her voice that he was attracted to:

The world has changed.  We’ve moved away from certain qualities that made music great, made it widely appealing. One of the things lost was that beautiful romantic sensibility. It is a sound of the past, like gospel singing or like blues. [I wanted a voice] like someone who has been in a time warp, somebody who has been isolated, protected from contamination. Here in Los Angeles, it’s less likely, less available, where everything is hurtling forward in time and away – from these moods, these articulations – as fast as you can possibly go. The microphone doesn’t lie. She had the voice, the voice the microphone wants. The voice that moves you. And it’s the best thing going. I can’t tell you how rare it is. It’s about where you’re located emotionally.

Arvizu has now released Friends for Life her first-ever CD, produced by Cooder. The new CD is described as telling Arvizu’s remarkable life story in twelve songs. Fronting her own band, she has played several concerts since the release of the CD in May and she is coming here to San Jose as part of the San Jose Mariachi and Latin Music Festival. This unique opportunity to hear Ersi Arvizu and Ry Cooder together should not be missed. The concert takes place on Friday, September 26 at the San Jose Civic at 8 pm. I’ll see you there.

For further information, go to:
http://sanjosemariachifestival.com/ersi-arvizu.php