It came as no surprise that on Friday night, a plebeian crowd congregated at the House of Blues in Anaheim to unwind, get inebriated, and sing along to the tunes of Ramón Ayala, the King of the Accordion. Historically, musica norteña/conjunto norteño–combining strings, percussion and the accordion–has been the sound of Mexico's working class, the common folk, especially men. In generations past, it was played exclusively at bars in the motherland, as men drowned their sorrows of love lost, or from juke boxes in SanTana cantinas, as immigrants reflected on their mortality. And although the venues and generations have changed, it is evident the timeless themes of Ayala's songs resonate for his fans just the same.
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Ayala burst onto the scene in the '60s, playing the Mexican cantina circuit as part of numerous musical groups, most memorably Los Relampagos de Norte
(the Lightning Bolts of the North) alongside Cornelio Reyna. A few
years later, the group broke up for reasons never fully understood, and from the '70s onward, Ayala and Los Bravos
del Norte set the bar for norteño music. His is a norteño
of love and despair, and drinking (the first two often the catalyst for
the latter). This three-night gig at the HOB was heralded as Una Noche Romántica con Ramón Ayala
(A Romantic Night With Ramón Ayala) to tie into Valentine's Day . . . because there's no
better way to say ,”I love you” than to serenade your lady in the
presence of a music king while enjoying a couple of Coronas. Ayala's music was initially near-exclusive to the cantina
venue, a place a man would never, ever, ever take his respectable
girlfriend or wife; these places were reserved for mistresses and
waitresses–often one and the same–so respectable ladies were
limited to listening to the flutter of Ayala's accordion on vinyl tracks as
their husbands cured hangovers.
Mexicans and their offspring. Not only were most people speaking English
as they waited for Ayala to taken the stage, but the crowd reflected a real
diversity in age and in composition: elderly men with their
wives, near-40-year-old couples desperately holding onto their youth,
twentysomething women dancing on their own without the need of a man to
show them a good time, and openly gay pairs embracing each other without
fear of harassment. All differences were transcended by Ayala's
mastery in uniting all through the human experience he chronicles in his
music.
beer they had left as they clumsily sang along, reminiscing about lost
love.
karaoke session, and by the look in Ayala's eyes, he treasured every
minute of it. Midway through the show, he dedicated “Me Caiste del Cielo” (“You're Heaven-sent”)–one of Reyna's best-known hits–to his now-deceased compa, followed up by the immortal and tear-jerking “Un Puño de Tierra”
(“A Fistful of Dirt”), a manifesto about human mortality. Interestingly
enough, before the song began, it was announced this was a very
special dedication from Juan Rivera, who was backstage, to his
sister Jenni (R.I.P.), who was a huge Ramón Ayala fan. Of course,
this made the crowd go crazy, and they sang along with even more bravado
and gulped their refilled cups of cerveza with unparalleled
sentiment. And this exactly is King Ayala's Midas touch: the invaluable
craft of taking his fans from the heights of heaven in one song and 6
feet under in the next, all at the touch of his accordion.
Random Notebook Dump:
Chick fight! Toward the end of the concert, one of the HOB security
guards I had befriended said to me, “Dude, you just missed a girl fight
outside!” and so I curiously stepped outside. When Downtown Disney
security staff saw me with pen and paper, one of them stepped in front
of me and firmly said, “What are you doing?” When they saw I had a
camera, they gathered around me. Umm, okay, I was just being nosy and was
going to laugh at the drunken, Lycra-dressed fembot being spoken to by
police, but now I'll write about your Gestapo-ish behavior at the order
of the Mouse. P.S. Come on, Latina ladies! We're better than that! No
fighting one another. Now, slapping your man because he was flirting with
another woman? Acceptable.
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