My Concert at Pima Community College- Tucson, Arizona:  March 18, 2008

by Mark Guerrero

     On Tuesday morning, March 18, 2008, I performed with a five-piece band for LULAC's 19th Annual Youth Leadership Conference at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.  LULAC is an acronym for League of United Latin American Citizens.  It's an organization whose purpose is to advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of the Hispanic population of the United States.  My brother Dan and I were invited to be a part of the event in tribute to my late father, Lalo Guerrero, whose hometown was Tucson.  My brother made a motivational presentation about the value of education and the importance of staying in school.  He also screened parts of his documentary, "Lalo Guerrero: The Original Chicano."  I followed with a concert.  My band members were Ron Reyes on guitar, Karl Carrasco on keyboard, Art Sanchez on bass, and Robert Zapata on drums.  I sang lead vocals and played guitar and keyboard.  The same band had just made an appearance on Thee Mr. Duran Show in Los Angeles one week before.  Steve Alaniz, who played sax with us on the Duran show was not part of this concert because the budget did not allow for me to bring a fifth musician.  We were put up in a very nice Inn Suites hotel near the venue.  After dinner, all the musicians in the band gathered in my room and over some red wine shared war stories of our years in the music business.  We also reminisced about our days as part of the "Eastside Sound" in the 1960s and early 70s.  Ron Reyes and I were remembering the first time we saw each other perform.  It was in 1965 at St. Alphonsus Auditorium in East Los Angeles, where he was playing with Thee Impalas and I with my band Mark & the Escorts.  We were both lead guitarists and both sang "Gloria" by Van Morrison, who was then a member of the band, Them.  We checked each other out as competitors, not imagining that after over twenty years of playing in parallel bands, we would play together "live" and in the studio extensively starting in 1988 to the present.

     The show took place at 11 a.m. in the gymnasium at the college, which was filled to capacity.  There were bleachers on each side of the gym and seating on the floor filling the room up to the stage.  I would estimate there were a couple of thousand students in attendance.  There were not only college students, but high school and middle school as well.  The show opened with a lineup which included folkloric dancers, a mariachi, and some world-class break dancers called LesAvenge B-Boys.  My brother Dan then made his presentation.  We closed the show with the following set of songs:  "The Streets of East L.A.," "Zoot Suit," "On the Boulevard," "Tin Marin de do Pingue," "Los Chucos Suaves," and "I'm Brown."  Songs one, two, three, and the closer were written by yours truly, while songs four and five were written by my dad, the late Lalo Guerrero.  The band rocked the house and got a great response from the young audience.  After the concert it was satisfying to get compliments, not only from the students, but from teachers, administrators, policemen, and many others of all ages and ethnicities.  We had a great time and were particularly pleased to be involved in an event that served such a worthy cause, promoting education of our youth.

See Program Below
 

Click here for Pima College concert photo gallery
 

Contact me at:  info@markguerrero.net

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