Los Lobos

Genre-bending Chicano rockers Los Lobos honed their sound playing traditional Mexican folk songs for weddings, quinceañeras, and even baptisms around L.A. for nearly a decade. ∙ Waylon Jennings scored a country hit with a cover of the title track from 1984’s How Will the Wolf Survive, which Rolling Stone named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. ∙ Their now-iconic version of “La Bamba,” from the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic of the same name, became the first Spanish-language song to top the Billboard Hot 100. ∙ Hoping to bring Mexican folk music to a wider audience, they honored their norteño roots on 1988’s La Pistola y El Corazón, which won a Grammy and made the Billboard 200. ∙ Now considered a cult classic, their innovative 1992 album, Kiko, earned the band an invitation to perform an altered version of “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” on Sesame Street. ∙ Most of its members have recorded with Los Super Seven, a rotating music collective whose 1998 self-titled debut earned a Grammy Award and hit the Top 10 of Billboard’s Latin Albums chart. ∙ They received the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the BMI Icon Award in 2017, and they were inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2018.