Song:Tell Her She's Lovely
Album:20th Century Masters: The Millenium Collection: The Best Of El Chicano
El Chicano was one of several Latin American rock bands that were signed to record contracts because of the success of Santana. El Chicano had some chart hits and Tell Her She's Lovely is probably their best known song. The group was from Los Angeles and were originally called The VIPs. Original members included keyboard player Bobby Espinosa, bassist Freddie Sanchez, lead guitarist Mickey Lespron, drummer John De Luna and conga player Andre Baeza. Others who went through the band included Jerry, Rudy & Steve Salas who later went on to form Tierra. El Chicano signed with MCA in 1970 and their debut single Viva Tirado reached #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. That was an instrumental written by jazz pianist Gerald Wilson. So El Chicano was more than a rock band. They had jazz and other Latin music influences. Their cover of Brown Eyed Girl also charted and Tell Her She's Lovely reached #40 on the Billboard Hot 100. They started out working with producer Eddie Davis who thought of himself as a Latino Berry Gordy. But El Chicano wanted to be more mainstream and Tell Her She's Lovely was produced by Johnny Musso who would work with James Brown in the 80s. The song was written by veteran songwriter David Batteau and it was on his 1974 album Batteaux. So though El Chicano never broke that big nationally, they were huge regionally in Mexican-American areas. In those places, Tell Her She's Lovely was as popular as anything by Santana or War. They left MCA in 1976 and recorded for Columbia in the 80s. You can get all their hits on this comp. A version of El Chicano still tours today. Bobby Espinosa died on Feb. 27, 2010. Here's El Chicano performing Tell Her She's Lovely at West Fest in San Francisco Oct. 25, 2009.
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