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Sunday, September 19, 1999

Music: Trend-setting Strains Echo Through Past 50 Years

By Dan Herrera
Journal Staff Writer
New Mexico's ties with popular music go back to the first days of rock 'n' roll, before the day the music died.
The legendary Buddy Holly, whose name and music became immortalized when he died at age 22 in a plane crash with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, was from Lubbock, Texas. But it was in Norman Petty's studio in Clovis that Holly found his unique sound and revolutionized rock 'n' roll.
There, starting with "That'll Be the Day," the hits kept coming. Eight hit Billboard's Top 40 by the time of Holly's death, on Feb. 3, 1959.
For years, Petty's studio would become a mecca for recording artists.
The Fireballs was another band out of Petty's studio, this one from Raton. It had three instrumental Top 40 hits between 1959 and 1961, and recorded the No. 1 hit "Sugar Shack."
The Arkansas-born Glen Campbell got his start in Albuquerque as part of his uncle Dick Bill's band. By 1960, Campbell had headed for Los Angeles to become a prolific studio musician.
Jim Morrison, the Doors' brooding singer, attended junior high school in Albuquerque, and it has been noted in the biography "Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive" that he turned strange during that time after coming upon an automobile accident while on the road to Santa Fe with his family. Morrison died in France under mysterious circumstances on July 3, 1971. He was 27.
Other early innovators would find a home in New Mexico.
Bo Diddley was a founding father of rock 'n' roll and inventor of the "jungle beat," a sound has been copied by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen.
Roger Miller, a top pop singer of the '60s, wound up in Tesuque, where he lived until his death in 1992.
XIT, a pioneering Native American rock band, was based in Albuquerque. The Rare Earth recording artists mixed radical Indian politics with rock and Native beats in early 1970s album "Plight of the Redman."
Taos' Michael Martin Murphey, now known as one of the nation's leading cowboy singers, was a pop star with hits like "Wildfire" and "Geronimo's Cadillac" in the '70s.
Kip Winger, who had three Top 40 hits 10 years ago and whose music videos became the butt of jokes on "Beavis and Butthead" cartoons, lives in Santa Fe.
Femme Fatale, a group that produced several MTV video hits, is from Albuquerque.
Karen Lafferty left Alamogordo to become an international star in the 1970s. Her folk song "Seek Ye First" has become a standard for many denominations.
Recording artists Tony Vincent, Jaci Velasquez, Jeni Varnadeau and The Kry have scored top albums nationwide. Vincent currently has a role in the Broadway production of "Rent."
But no survey of New Mexico music would be complete without the Sanchez family.
Al "Hurricane" Sanchez is called the "Godfather of New Mexico Music." In the early '60s, he took traditional Mexican folk music, electrified it, added a smidgen of rock 'n' roll and created a unique style that remains popular. His early '60s version of "La Bamba" still kicks better than Valens' hit tune. Today he continues to tour with his son, Al Sanchez Jr.
Sanchez' brother Amador "Tiny Morrie" Sanchez had an international string of Spanish-language hits and an English-language hit, "Lonely Letters."
Gabe "Baby Gaby" Sanchez was known for his cumbias, but also did vocals on the bilingual hit "Pepito."
In recent years, Amador Sanchez's children Lorenzo Antonio and the all-girl group Sparx have produced several international hit albums.
And let's not forget the matriarch of the Sanchez musical dynasty, Bennie L. Sanchez, who was a major music promoter during the '60s and '70s. She was responsible for bringing Jimi Hendrix to Albuquerque's Civic Auditorium for a pair of concerts that would be among his last.
The legendary guitarist played the Civic on June 19, 1970. Tickets were $3, $4 and $5. He died in London of a drug overdose on Sept. 18, 1970. He was 27.