• Address: Murrieta, CA 92562 (map)
• Date Posted: 12/10/09

Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero

Lalo Guerrero was born in Tucson, Arizona on December 24, 1916 (Christmas eve). His father's origins were in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico and his mother was originally from Santa Ana, Sonora, Mexico. They were married in Cananea, Sonora and came to Tucson in 1911 where they remained the rest of their lives except for a brief attempt at living in Mexico in 1935. Beginning his recording career in 1938, Lalo Guerrero is called "the father of Chicano music" and "the original Chicano hepcat." Lalo mused the joys and sorrows, dreams and frustrations of the Latino-American community and Chicano popular culture and music.

Lalo was invited to the White House in 1980, in celebration of the 15th Anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts, hosted by President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter. The coveted "Golden Eagle Award" was given to Lalo Guerrero that same year by the Hispanic arts an entertainment organization Nosotros for his contribution to music. More recently, on June 9, 1989, he again received the "Golden Eagle" for life-time achievement in music. Throughout his lifetime Lalo toured the southwestern United States and Northern Mexico with considerable success, eventually settling into his own nightclub "Lalo's" from 1960 to 1972. The following year he moved to Palm Springs, California to live and entertain friends and fans at Las Casuelas Nuevas Restaurant in Rancho Mirage.

Lalo was also an author that wrote of his early Latino and black musical influences in Tucson, his budding career in Los Angeles in 1938 that began a recording career with the Los Carlistas quartet, and of his National Medal of the Arts award presented by President Clinton at the White House in 1997.

(Guerrero was officially declared a national folk treasure by the Smithsonian Institution in 1980[citation needed] and was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 1996 by then United States President Bill Clinton. In 1992 Guerrero received the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment of the Arts. In late 2005 Guerrero was posthumously inducted into the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame.)

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