My Concert / Interview On Thee Mr. Duran Show: March 11, 2008

On Tuesday night, March 11, 2008, I taped an interview and "live" concert backed by a 5-piece band on Thee Mr. Duran Show, which airs on Adelphia cable in many parts of the greater East Los Angeles area and worldwide on the internet at mrduran.com. Thee Mr. Duran Show has been on the air for nine years. Many guest artists have performed "live" on the show including Thee Midniters with Little Willie G, Tierra, and Brenton Wood. On this night, I played guitar and keyboard, in addition to my lead vocals. The musicians who backed me on the show were Ron Reyes on guitar, Karl Carrasco on keyboard, and Steve Alaniz on tenor sax, who had played with me on numerous concerts. Art Sanchez on bass and Robert Zapata on drums were playing with me for the first time. Actually, Art and I had performed together before as part of the Yaqui band reunion at The Hop in Puente Hills, California in 2005, where we played three of the songs we also did on the Mr. Duran Show on this night. This new band lineup did one rehearsal at Little Ray's Sanctuary Studio in East Los Angeles one week prior to the taping of the Duran Show. On the day of the taping, I had mild bronchitis and laryngitis, but the stage had been set and I didn't want to cancel. Two days before I had a cortisone shot and was put on a strong antibiotic in hopes I would recover enough of my voice to be able to sing effectively on the show. My new band lineup and the Mr. Duran Show appearance happened in an interesting way. Robert Zapata had emailed me, which led to a phone conversation. At the time, I didn't have a drummer for my original music band and since he was working all the time with Ron Reyes and Karl Carrasco who knew my material, he suggested we have a rehearsal so if something came up, I'd have a band ready to go. Coincidentally, I had been a guest on Thee Mr. Duran Show about a month before with David Reyes, co-author of the book "Land of a Thousand Dances." David and I were interviewed by Mr. Duran about the "Eastside Sound" and other topics related to Chicano music. Once the band and I had a rehearsal date set, Robert said "why don't we go on Thee Mr. Duran Show?" That would give us something specific for which to rehearse. Coincidentally, I was also in negotiations for a concert in Tucson, Arizona at Pima Community College, so I pushed for me to be able to take a band with me. Fortunately, that came through so we had two things for which to rehearse. Unfortunately, the budget in Tucson allowed for me to take four musicians so I couldn't invite Steve Alaniz, whom I would have loved to include.

The songs we did on Thee Mr. Duran Show were four of my songs, "The Streets of East L.A.," "Zoot Suit," "On the Boulevard," and "I'm Brown," and two of my dad's songs; (Lalo Guerrero) "Tin Marin de do Pingue" and "Los Chucos Suaves." These were the only songs we had rehearsed so when the stage manager asked us to play another song at the end of the show, I burst into a version of the classic Freddy King instrumental, "Sen-sa-shun." I played lead guitar on it, but Ronnie, Karl, and Steve also soloed on it. The band really rocked the house on the show and my voice was good enough to pull it off, but it was very hard to sing and have the control I like to have. One of the highlights was our performance of "I'm Brown," a song I first recorded in 1972 on Capitol Records. Ronnie and I traded guitar solos at the end and the band rocked its way through an extended ending. I also did interview segments between some of the musical performances. The audience was very enthusiastic and responded well to our set. I would also like to mention that Phil Reyes, who's the sound engineer and production manager of Thee Mr. Duran Show, did a great job with the sound and mixing, along with his staff. There were some musicians in the audience including Robert Benavides, lead singer of the band Satisfaction, and Albert Martinez, formerly of the Desires in the 60s and currently of Tabu. The energy in the small television studio was intense and we all had a great time. Videos of all the songs, with the exception of "Sen-sa-shun" are on youtube.com. You can access them on Mr. Duran's website or from my site. Click here to get to the page. Visit Mr. Duran's website, www.mrduran.com for more info on his show and to see videos of the other artists archived there. Two weeks after my taping of Thee Mr. Duran Show, Mr. Duran was a guest on Tony Valdez' "Midday Sunday" on KTTV in Los Angeles, where he played a clip of my performance of "The Streets of East L.A." to open the show. I had a great time doing Thee Mr. Duran Show, as did my band. We've been invited back for another appearance in the near future. We'll do a different set of songs and, hopefully, my voice will be healthy and back to normal.

Photo Gallery

(Photos by Christina Rose)