Lalo Guerrero left his hometown to pursue his dream in music.
22 Facts About Lalo Guerrero
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Lalo Guerrero says that he gives his mother all the credit for his musical talent, and Guerrero said she taught him to "embrace the spirit of being Chicano".
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Lalo Guerrero was no professional musician but had taught herself to play guitar.
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Lalo Guerrero moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s, and had a few uncredited roles in movies, including Boots and Saddles and His Kind of Woman.
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Lalo Guerrero recorded for Imperial Records and fronted the Trio Imperial.
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Lalo Guerrero formed his own orchestra and toured throughout the Southwest.
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Lalo Guerrero performed at the La Bamba club in Hollywood, a place frequented by the biggest stars in the movie business.
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Lalo Guerrero recorded and wrote many songs in all sorts of genres.
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Lalo Guerrero recorded over 700 songs since his first record in 1939 with Los Carlistas on Vocalion Records.
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Lalo Guerrero used the Davy Crockett melody and wrote his own lyrics, telling the story of a legendary Mexican character.
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Lalo Guerrero wrote songs about Cesar Chavez, other farm workers and braceros.
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Lalo Guerrero's songs infused with Pachuco slang, a combination of informal Spanish and English, acted as a megaphone.
13.
Lalo Guerrero wrote children's songs presented via his "Las Ardillitas," or "Three Little Squirrels", with his voice sped up.
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In 2005, Lalo Guerrero was one of several Chicano musicians who collaborated with Ry Cooder on Cooder's Chavez Ravine album, for which he provided vocals on three songs which helped bring him, at the twilight of his life, to the attention of a wider Anglo audience.
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Lalo Guerrero recorded his last full CD on Break Records, a Los Angeles-based record label, this at age 83.
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Lalo Guerrero was officially declared a national folk treasure by the Smithsonian Institution in 1980 and was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 1996 by then United States President Bill Clinton.
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In 1991 Lalo Guerrero received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
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In late 2005 Lalo Guerrero was posthumously inducted into the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame.
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Lalo Guerrero's contributions have resulted in Las Glorias, a restaurant in central Phoenix, Arizona displaying a poster of him with his signature on it on the wall for everyone to see in loving memory of him.
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Lalo Guerrero has a blown-up, candid photograph of him as a young man on the wall of a major underpass in Tucson.
21.
Lalo Guerrero was married for over 34 years to his wife Lidia Lalo Guerrero.
22.
Lalo Guerrero died on March 17,2005, in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 88.