“Ten Believers” by Latin Playboys

For as much as I love music, I’m rarely impressed with live performances. Don’t get me wrong, there have been many concerts that I’ve adored, but all too often artists are either too tired of the material they are playing or simply cannot recapture the honesty or production values from their original recordings. And yes I know that this is my shortcoming.

One outstanding live performance that I’ll never forget was when my little sister and I caught Los Lobos in 1994. They played for nearly three hours with several sets of various styles, ranging from Folk, Norteño, Zydeco, Latin Rock, Country, R&B, and Punk, all with a high level of skill, joy and passion. Since 1973 they have been a band unafraid to travel into various musical territories.
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“Ten Believers” is a great example of David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez’s well-traveled pallet.  Released through their more experimental side project Latin Playboys, it showcases great songwriting smothered in low-fidelity. It’s sad that they are no longer releasing material under the Latin Playboys, because there is some outstanding material on those two albums.