Good Morning Everybody................Y La Cruda?.....Hey, to maintain a band, a Record Label,a publishing Company and all the extra-curriculars that goes with it costs a bundle..........a lot of money.......studios have to be paid, musicians have to be paid, pressing plants have to be paid, marketing and promtions come very high dollar..............
Having said all that..........my hat's off to all the business Entrepreneurs that are still gambling with their money in La Onda........La Onda is a scary place to do business..............most everybody that's surviving are TROOPERS......
I have long been an advocate for excellence........and when I was beginning in the business I always asked questions and sought answers were ever I could...how can the Texas based bands sound as good or better than our Mexican counterparts.......back in the 60s La Onda was already putting out some world class recordings and like I have mentioned before.....MUSICIANSHIP WAS ONLY GETTING BETTER.........
Some of you don't know this but it was not the quality of our recordings that was keeping us from getting airplay.........[STUPID ME] it was POWER!
There are two people still alive that were at a meeting back in 1976 as was I, the other was Juan Hinojosa/drummer bandleader for Los Fabulosos Cuatro.
At that meeting we were told by the new coalition/conglomerate......from the Norteño Establishment...............THAT TEJANO WAS OUT OF THE MAJOR LEAGUES AND THEY WOULD DO EVERYTHING THEY COULD TO BURY US.........
How that deep hatred started for us I'll never know because I have many friends in Mexico.........But they targeted Tejanos all across the board.....Many of you that read this journal do not know the great relations the Tejano artists of the time had with the mega stars of Mexico..........
And we still do in many ways..........but like all other POWER PLAYERS in any Genre or any situation................whoever controls the money controls everything.........That means the hatred for our music, culture, way of life,
has affected our livlihood, our expression of artistic freedom has been denied by those we call our own people......... Los Mejicanos....... that have the real power.
GO FIGURE!.....shall we turn the other cheek or do something about it?
We at Tortilla Records will go and see just how much we can do..... and
there's got to be a solution to this problem......How in the world will we ever know that we can't sell as much as any Latino artist?
Nobody's giving us that chance........
My money's on what we're doing with our creativity.......we just need to find a way to get on the air......this a message, to all Tejano artists ....push your recordings in all of North, central, and South America.
From Tortilla Headquarters in Austin........we wish all Tejanos all the success in the world............
Yes......he died in a car accident on Thanksgiving in 2002 ....Juan had been the whole month of October in the studio recording with Tortilla Factory.....I am fixing to release an original of Tortilla's called "Cookin" where Juan just Funkafized the drums like Dave Garibaldi.......
As a matter of fact there are two Tower of Power Musicians on "Cookin" including Jerry Lopez and they all loved his Funk.
Jody we will have redo Charro's stuff rael soon..I will take care of ken real soon.
