La Bamba: A Song History

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"La Bamba" belongs to the son jarocho, the traditional rural music of Veracruz in Mexico's Gulf region.[1] The style rests on regional guitars such as the jarana and the requinto jarocho together with the jarocho harp, while a lead singer improvises verses and dancers beat out zapateado footwork, sometimes on a raised wooden platform called the tarima.[1] Indiana University's Cook Music Library calls the piece a traditional son jarocho wedding song,[2] and the Library of Congress describes it as a dance number much loved at weddings.[3]

Ornate Mexican seven-course guitar with mother-of-pearl inlay

M. Fernandez, Guitarra Séptima (Seven-course guitar), Mexican, spruce, rosewood and mother-of-pearl, ca. 1880. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

The Cook Music Library names a 1939 disc by Alvaro Hernández Ortiz, billed as "El Jarocho," as the earliest recording of the song it knows to be currently available.[2] Andrés Huesca and his Costeños also recorded it for the Victor label, on a record now held in UCLA's Strachwitz Frontera Collection.[4] Ritchie Valens, born Richard Valenzuela in Los Angeles, had picked the song up among the Spanish songs of his Mexican-American family, and his 1958 rock and roll version with amplified guitar came out late that year as the B-side of his single "Donna"; the Library of Congress named it to the National Recording Registry's 2018 class.[3] A Library of Congress essay places the session at Gold Star studio in Los Angeles, and notes that Los Lobos later took the song to the top of the Billboard chart with their recording for the 1987 Valens film La Bamba.[5]

Smithsonian Folkways ranks it among the most familiar jarocho pieces, at home and internationally,[1] and the label's 2003 album of sones jarochos by José Gutiérrez and Los Hermanos Ochoa opens with it.[6]

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Sources

  1. Smithsonian Folkways: "Son Jarocho from Veracruz: An Exploration of Dance Forms".
  2. Indiana University Cook Music Library: "La Bamba" (Sounds of Mexico exhibit).
  3. Library of Congress: "New National Recording Registry Class Is 'Superfly'".
  4. UCLA Strachwitz Frontera Collection: "La Bamba" (Andrés Huesca y sus Costeños, Victor 75-7538-A).
  5. Library of Congress, Now See Hear!: "A Look at Our Hispanic Heritage: Remembering Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba”".
  6. Smithsonian Folkways: "La Bamba: Sones Jarochos from Veracruz".