Larry Lange and his Lonely Knights: Home
Special Continental Club Show with Sunny Ozuna on DECEMBER 6th at 10pm, see poster on photos page.
LARRY LANGE & His LONELY KNIGHTS frontman, Lange, assembled his 'Knights from among Austin's best instrumentalists, with the result being live shows & an amazing debut CD ("Crazy, Crazy Baby" on the Texas Jamboree label) that clearly places the band as very worthy bearers of the Texas rhythm & blues, Tex-Mex, swamp pop, and brown-eyed soul torch! But this is far from Larry's first forray into Texas Gulf Coast & blues music.... Aside from playing alongside a teenage Stevie (Ray) Vaughan in The Cobras, he performed with the likes of Doug Sahm, Angela Strehli, Delbert McClinton, Bo Diddley, and backed just about every blues legend under the sun during his time as the bassist in Antone's stellar house band! Larry Lange & His Lonely Knights on their own are nothing short of a musical treat, but for this special night, they're the top-shelf "house band" performing together with the "Legends Of Chicano Soul"...
During the Nineteen Fifties & early Sixties, American was knee-deep in a musical & cultural evolution which would shape the rhythm & blues, doo-wop, soul, and rock-n-roll sounds for decades to come. At the same time, there was a parallel evolution, or one might say a "revolution" happening within the latino communities.... To the wider general public, this may have seemed like a very minor revolution in the beginning, but within the Mexican-American communities, and eventually throughout a fairly broad swatch of mainstream America, a new & exciting sound was exploding across the land!
Young Chicano musicians across the Southwest were covering the hot rhythm & blues and doo-wop songs of the day, and would soon begin writing their own original material as well, infusing the popular sound and vocal harmonies with a dash of their own traditional Spanish musical influences.
Here in South Texas, and more specifically in San Antonio, we are very lucky to have had a rich blend of varied cultural sounds (conjunto, cajun, German, etc.) to further shape this amazing new music! This was the birth of what became known as "hispanic rhythm & blues", "brown-eyed soul", and most recently (and perhaps most appropriately) "chicano soul"!
The four very special guest stars of this show are not simply "surviving side players" of the genre, but they are truly among the LEGENDS of chicano soul.... SONNY ACE of Sonny Y Los Twisters ("Oh, Marie", "If My Teardrops Could Talk"), DIMAS GARZA of The Royal Jesters ("Love Me", I Want To Be Loved"), RUDY T. GONZALES of Rudy Tee & The Reno Bops ("Together Again", "All I Could Do Was Cry"), and CHARLIE ALVARADO of Charlie & The Jives ("Hard Times", "For The Rest Of My Life") are among the pioneering powerhouses who not only filled auditoriums, dancehalls, and high school gymnasiums (on prom nights), but record store bins, and radio & television airwaves as well! They've all continued to actively tour & perform in the decades since they laid the groundwork that became "chicano soul".... They are without a doubt, time-tested SUPERSTARS!