Corridos of the Chicaño Movement / Corridos of the Chicano Movement

Based on the Texas border in the '60s and '70s, Rumel Fuentes built a small following as something of a protest singer. He specialized in corridos, storytelling ballads with a tendency to turn toward the political. The lyrics cover elements of the Chicano movement: walkouts of laborers, César Chávez's push for unionization, generalized Mexican pride. He does this with the singsong cadence common to so much norteño music, a bouncing bajo with lightly plucked guitar in the front. Fuentes' vocals are perhaps stereotypical, but provide something of a cultural backdrop for the lyrical messages. There are more musically interesting takes on tejano/norteño music out there to be had (Flaco Jiménez, for example), but the mix of bare musicality and lyrical prowess meet well in Fuentes' work.