Long Hair And Lowriders: Latin Rock In 1971

Enlarge this image

Four of the most influential Latin Rock albums of 1971. Anamaria Sayre/NPR Illustration hide caption

toggle caption

Anamaria Sayre/NPR Illustration

Four of the most influential Latin Rock albums of 1971.

Anamaria Sayre/NPR Illustration

We take the Alt.Latino Time Machine back to 1971 to tell the story of how three albums captured a moment when music, culture and current events collided in song. WAR's All Day Music, El Chicano's Revolución and Santana's Santana III made a difference 50 years ago and are still influential on Latin music in the new millennium.

With the guidance of Latin music master Jesse "Chuy" Varela of KCSM in San Mateo, Calif., we recount the heady days of the late 1960s and early 1970s when social concerns — from farmworker rights to the disproportionate deaths of Chicanos during the Vietnam War — were expressed in music. Varela also points out how the coexistence of Black and Brown neighborhoods in Southern California contributed to the sound of the music being made, a world in which soul and Afro-Caribbean rhythms became the voice of an emerging political movement.

War, "Nappy Head"

War, "All Day Music"

El Chicano, "Cubano Chant"

Santana, "Everybody's Everything"