Mark &
the Escorts with Lalo Guerrero In the 1960s
by Mark Guerrero
My teenage band, Mark & the Escorts, had an association
with my dad, Lalo Guerrero, both "live" and
in the studio in the 60s. In 1963, the first year of
the Escorts, then a three-piece group comprised of Robert
Warren and me on guitars, and Ernie Hernandez on drums, performed at my dad’s night club, “Lalo’s,”
on Brooklyn Avenue in East Los Angeles. We were set
up on the dance floor in front of the bandstand. It was a late afternoon show, a tardeada,
which he did every Sunday. We played “Wipe Out”
and other surf instrumentals in front of the adult Latino
crowd, who gave us a warm response, probably mostly because
we were so young (13 and 14 years old). The same year,
he took us to a recording studio for the first time to do
a recording of our own. The studio was called Jimmy
Jones Studio in Pasadena, where he recorded almost all of
his records from the late 50s through the early 70s.
At the time, they only had a two-track machine. I don’t
think 4-tracks had come out yet. We recorded two instrumentals,
“Windy and Warm,” which we learned from an album
by The Ventures, and a blues we cleverly titled “The
Blues.” I played lead guitar on the first track
and Robert soloed on the latter. In early 1964, after the addition
of Richard Rosas on bass, we went back and did two more instrumentals,
“San Ho-Zay” by Freddy King with me on lead guitar,
and another updated blues with Robert on lead. We came
out of both sessions with a 45-rpm acetate, which was very
exciting for kids in their early teens. Also in 1964,
he took us on a California tour with his band, which included
gigs in Bakersfield, Stockton, and San Jose. It was
quite an experience for us to travel by car, stay in motels,
and eat in various coffee shops with a bunch of veteran musicians.
My strongest memory is of the Bakersfield gig, which was in
a huge building at a fairgrounds in the afternoon. There
must have been a thousand people in attendance. We got
a great response, especially from some screaming pre-teenage
girls. This was at the height of Beatlemania and as
a gimmick we wore Beatle wigs for a couple of songs.
The same year, we recorded a real record backing up my dad.
It was called “El Rock de Las Ardillitas,” which
included parts of “Twist and Shout” and “Roll
Over Beethoven.” By this time we were known as
Mark & the Escorts and it was the first time we played
on a recording that was released. After adding a sax
player and lead singer to our lineup, Trini Basulto and Ricky
Almaraz, we embarked on a small tour of Arizona. We
played in Yuma on the bill with my dad’s orchestra,
then went on to Chandler, where we played a teenage dance
by ourselves. We then headed for my dad’s hometown
of Tucson, where we played at an uncle’s house party.
In 1965, Mark & the Escorts backed
my dad on a huge hit record called “La Minifalda de
Reynalda.” We played the rock choruses of the
song, while El Conjunto de los Hermanos Arellano played the
norteño verses. I played lead guitar on a 12-string
Rickenbacker solid body guitar. We followed that success
with "Felipe El Hippie," which again featured Mark
& the Escorts with me on lead guitar, doing the rock
choruses and El Conjunto de los Hermanos Arellano again playing
the norteño verses behind my dad's vocal. These sessions
were fun because the two bands were set up facing each other
and taking turns playing sections of the song. It was
like dueling bands and there were no overdubs. We were
playing "live" in the studio with my dad doing the
vocal at the same time. The same year, after adding
Joe Cabral on Farfisa organ to the band, we backed my dad
on another record called “Los Greñudos.”
It’s a rock & roll song with our band sounding like
Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs and my dad growling with his
best rock & roll voice. As Mark & the Escorts
evolved into the Men from S.O.U.N.D. and then Nineteen Eighty-Four,
we continued to occasionally record with my dad. In
1969, Nineteen Eighty-Four, comprised of me on guitar, Ernie
Hernandez on drums, Richard Rosas on bass, and Tony Rodas
on Farfisa organ, backed my dad on his Spanish language version
of the Ray Stevens novelty hit, “Guitarzan.”
Later that same year, we backed my dad on a new version of
his classic Christmas song “Pancho Claus,” which
included a section with us as the Beatles doing “Sgt.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.” (My dad's original
1950s version referred to Elvis, which illustrates his ability
to stay with the times.) After Tony Rodas left the band
to go away to college, Ernie, Richard, and I backed my dad
on “El Tex Mex,” which featured our band doing
the country rock choruses with El Conjunto de Los Hermanos
Arellano playing the norteño verses like on “La
Minifalda de Reynalda,” and "Felipe El Hippie."
We also recorded a comic rock song my dad wrote entitled “El
Burrito,” which is about a guy eating a burrito
with a girlfriend. The chorus says: “I’ll
bite on one end, you’ll bite on the other, we’ll
meet in the middle and then oh brother, we’ll kiss and
kiss until we smother, and when it’s gone, we’ll
order another.” All this recording experience
with my dad, along with the sessions for Crescendo Records
with Billy Cardenas in ‘65 and Kapp Records with Tommy
Coe in ‘69, was quite a lot for a teenager and provided
great training for me and my bandmates' recordings in the
'70s and beyond.
The Escorts- Lalo's Night Club 1963
(Robert Warren,
Ernie Hernandez, and Mark Guerrero)
The Escorts- Bakersfield, California- May 1964
(Mark Guerrero,
Robert Warren, Ernie Hernandez, and Richard Rosas)
