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Liner Notes for CD:  "Eastside Sound, Vol. 2
Featuring Mark & the Escorts" Dionysus Records (2001)

The Mark & the Escorts Story

by Mark Guerrero

     Mark & the Escorts were born in 1963 when Ernie Hernandez, age 12, came over to my house, three doors down from his, on McDonnell Avenue in East Los Angeles.  He had been playing drums for a year and had a guitar player friend of his over, 14 year old Robert Warren.  Ernie knew I had recently acquired a Gibson electric guitar and an amp, so he invited me over to play with them.  I was thirteen at the time and had nothing better to do, so I went over.  Soon we were the Escorts, playing all instrumentals, mostly surf tunes like “Wipe Out,” “Pipeline” and various songs by the Ventures and Dick Dale.  Occasionally we threw in a blues song for good measure.  We started playing parties, weddings and dances for pay, sometimes for as much as five dollars a piece.  We decided we needed a bass player, so I asked my friend Richard Rosas to buy a bass and he could join the band.  Our next move was to add a lead singer and since I felt my voice was too young sounding, we added my childhood best friend, Ricky Almaraz.  A few months later, Robert brought a friend over who played a mean tenor sax for a teenager.  His name was Trini Basulto.  Trini had print shop at Garfield High School and created some business cards for the band on which he printed “Mark & the Escorts.” The name stuck.  At the time, East L.A. was the home of countless teenage bands, many of which had names with the leader’s name attached such as, Art & the Niteliters and Ronnie & the Casuals.  Our repertoire at this time included rock & roll, r&b, and British invasion music.  We played at popular venues such as, the Big and Little Union Halls, St. Alphonsus Auditorium, Kennedy Hall, the Alexandria Hotel and the Montebello Ballroom.

     It was at this point that we came to the attention of East Los Angeles manager/producer, Billy Cardenas.  He was managing many bands at the time including the Blendells, Premiers, and Cannibal & the Headhunters. He started booking us into other venues such as, the Belair Rollerdrome and Rainbow Gardens in Pomona.  On February 21, 1965 we performed at the Shrine Auditorium with all the top east side bands at a show called the “West Coast East Side Revue.”  An album of the same name was eventually released containing studio recordings by the participating bands. By this time we had lost our lead singer and added Richard Magaña on baritone sax and Joe Cabral on Farfisa organ to our lineup.  In June of 1965, Cardenas took us into Stereo Masters studio in Hollywood where we recorded two instrumentals, “Get Your Baby” and “Tuff Stuff.”  In October, we returned to the studio and recorded a vocal number entitled “Dance with Me,” with a singer Billy Cardenas brought into the project, and an instrumental called “Silly Putty.”  Strangely enough, nobody remembers who the vocalist was, including Billy.  Mark & the Escorts continued to perform for about another year, several members came and went, and then we changed our name to the Men from S.O.U.N.D.

     The nucleus of myself on guitar, and by now vocals, Richard Rosas on bass and Ernie Hernandez on drums, stayed in tact through the mid-seventies.  The Men from S.O.U.N.D., who played the East L.A. circuit through 1968, evolved into “Nineteen Eighty Four” in 1969, playing songs by artists such as, Cream and Buffalo Springfield.  Named after the classic George Orwell novel, we recorded a single for Kapp Records that year called “Three’s a Crowd.”  In the early 70’s we added John Valenzuela on guitar and went by the name of “the Mudd Brothers,” which was changed to “Tango,” when we recorded an album of my original songs for A&M Records in 1973. 

Members of Mark & the Escorts on “Get Your Baby,” “Tuff Stuff,” “Dance with Me” and “Silly Putty:

Mark Guerrero, lead guitar 
Robert Warren, rhythm guitar
Richard Rosas, bass
Ernie Hernandez, drums
Joe Cabral, Farfisa organ
Trini Basulto, tenor sax
Richard Magaña, baritone sax
Lead vocal on “Dance with Me”- unknown,
Background vocals on “Dance with Me”- Mark Guerrero and Richard Magaña

Mark & the Escorts on cover photo:



Left to right: Ricky Almaraz, Trini Basulto, Richard Rosas, Mark Guerrero (seated), Ernie Hernandez, & Robert Warren (1964).

For more information on Mark & the Escorts, click here to go to my article called "Mark & the Escorts with Lalo Guerrero In the 60s.

Contact me at:  info@markguerrero.net

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