Perhaps no rock band is better suited to make an album covering songs by other artists than Los Lobos.

For more than 40 years, this band from East Los Angeles have made cover tunes a regular part of their live shows. They’ve played their versions of songs from artists as wide ranging as Bob Marley, The Grateful Dead, Marvin Gaye, John Lee Hooker, The Blasters, and Cream. 

In fact, Los Lobos’ biggest commercial success came in 1987 with their chart-topping cover of the Ritchie Valens classic “La Bamba,” for the movie of the same name. 

Not only that, but over the course of a dozen studio albums, Los Lobos have shown a deep knowledge of blues, rock n’ roll, folk, and their native Mexican music. They have created a rich catalog of songs that’s stylistically diverse, frequently innovative and somehow also cohesive. 

Those songs will be on display when Los Lobos stop at Honeywell Center in Wabash on Saturday, April 6.

Necessity leads to Grammy

While covers have been commonplace for Los Lobos, it became a necessity for their first album on New West Records, Native Sons. The album of covers won the Grammy in April 2022 for Best Americana Album.

After signing with the label, Los Lobos saxophonist/keyboardist Steve Berlin and his bandmates realized they would not have time to write and record an album of original material in 2020 because there were not any real breaks in their touring schedule. 

But if the band took writing an album’s worth of songs out of the equation, an album would be doable. A covers album fit that bill.

As it turned out, 2021’s Native Sons won a Grammy for Best Americana Album, the group’s fourth such honor.

Of course, 2020 ended up being a whole lot less busy than expected for Los Lobos thanks to the pandemic lockdowns canceling tour after tour. But they stuck with the covers project, and it ended up being beneficial to the band, which includes Berlin, David Hidalgo (guitar, accordion, vocals), Cesar Rosas (guitar, vocals) Louis Perez (guitar, vocals), and Conrad Lozano (bass).

“The interesting thing is we started this record before it (the pandemic) all went down, and in a weird way, it sort of kept us sane, I think,” Berlin said in a phone interview. 

“Once it was safe-ish to travel, we started doing like three or four days a month, maybe like two or three songs and just tried to do whatever we could just to keep the ball rolling, keep ourselves engaged, keep ourselves thinking about music … . In a weird way, that’s how we got through it, kind of coming and going and focusing for a little while and then stepping back.”

Selecting songs to cover

When thinking of the type of covers album to make, Berlin thought back to Llego Navidad, the 2019 Los Lobos album based around Mexican holiday songs. 

Feeling a narrow focus helped to make that project work, Berlin, who produced Native Sons, proposed limiting the album to songs from Los Angeles artists that had influenced Los Lobos.

“There was not unanimity among the band members as far as whether or not it was a good idea,” Berlin said. “I think there was significant pushback, and some of the guys were like, ‘How’s that going to work?’ and ‘Why are we limiting ourselves? I have songs I want to do that are not about L.A.’ And I just said, my point to them was let’s just see if it works. If it doesn’t work, we’ll pull the plug, whatever. It doesn’t matter.” 

The band found there were plenty of Los Angeles song choices, and they make Native Sons a lively, highly entertaining 13-song album. 

Classic rock is represented by a medley of the Buffalo Springfield’s “Bluebird” and “For What It’s Worth.” There’s jump blues with Percy Mayfield’s “Never No More,” and garage rock is represented with “Farmer John.” Some vintage roots rock comes courtesy of “Flat Top Joint,” a song by good friends and Los Angeles compatriots the Blasters (which was the band Berlin was in before he joined Los Lobos). Soul music enters the mix with War’s “The World Is a Ghetto.” There’s also the sunny pop of Beach Boys’ “Sail On Sailor” and the rich storytelling and country-tinged pop of Jackson Browne’s “Jamaica Say You Will.” Los Lobos’ Mexican musical roots are represented in the songs “Dichoso” and “Los Chucos Suaves.”

With their deep catalog of songs, Los Lobos have typically changed up their setlists from show to show on tour. And now that new drummer Alfredo Ortiz has been on board since touring resumed and is up to speed on the material, the band should have plenty of options for setlists. 

“(Ortiz) used to play with the Beastie Boys for many years” Berlin said. “But we’ll obviously be featuring the new record, which is great because (the songs) are super fun to play and the fans always seem to enjoy the covers anyway.”