{"id":143193,"date":"2024-01-14T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=143193"},"modified":"2024-01-13T15:25:49","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T23:25:49","slug":"great-acoustics-los-lobos-bajo-sexto-and-requinto-jarocho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/great-acoustics-los-lobos-bajo-sexto-and-requinto-jarocho\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Acoustics: Los Lobos\u2019 Bajo Sexto and Requinto Jarocho"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While these two beautiful instruments are almost never played together within the same song, they certainly reflect the breadth of Los Lobos<\/a>\u2019 influences, the band\u2019s willingness to stake out new musical territory, and their dedication to folkl\u00f3rico\u2019s rich traditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cesar<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cesar Rosas\u2019s Telecaster-bodied bajo sexto was born of necessity, when he grew tired of watching his treasured Macias bajo sexto take a beating on the road. Using Leo Fender\u2019s early ideas about guitar construction as guidance, Rosas took an old Telecaster body and his Macias bajo sexto (to serve as a template) to Los Angeles luthier Bill Antel. \u201cI knew this thing would take a fall someday,\u201d says Rosas, \u201cso I wanted a maple neck, a rosewood fingerboard, and a truss rod in the interest of durability and strength.\u201d Antel crafted the neck using the Macias\u2019s scale as reference, then mated it to the Telecaster body, in which he installed a Danelectro magnetic \u201clipstick\u201d pickup. Unable to find a stock bridge of suitable width, Rosas turned to the late, legendary, East L.A. luthier Porfirio \u201cCandelas\u201d Delgado of Candelas Guitars and had him craft a very traditional bajo sexto bridge\u2014a union of traditional and modern that perfectly sums up the Los Lobos aesthetic. The lowest eight of the strings are paired in octaves and tuned (low to high) E A D G; the four highest strings are double courses and tuned to (low to high) C and F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, David Hidalgo\u2019s requinto jarocho is an entirely traditional instrument. Crafted in 1988 by Candelario \u201cCandy\u201d Delgado of Candelas Guitars, Hidalgo\u2019s requinto jarocho was built around a single slab of 20-year-old aged mahogany, which was carved to form the neck, back, and sides. The top is spruce and the neck is capped with a Brazilian rosewood fretboard. When played with a long, straight pick (whittled from a barber\u2019s comb in the fashion of Hidalgo\u2019s hero, requinto wizard Lino Chavez), Hidalgo\u2019s requinto jarocho jumps with a barky, bright, percussive voice that\u2019s surprisingly loud for such a small, shallow body.\u00a0 Backed by Rosas\u2019s driving nylon six-string and the slapping propulsion of Louie Perez\u2019s equally diminutive jarana, Hidalgo\u2019s requinto jarocho becomes the improvisational and melodic-lead voice of Los Lobos\u2019 son jarocho <\/em>excursions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This Great Acoustics column was originally published in the <\/em>July 2007 issue of <\/em>Acoustic Guitar<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two instruments belonging to Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo reflect the breadth of the band\u2019s influences and dedication to tradition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":143197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Two instruments belonging to Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo reflect the breadth of the band\u2019s influences and dedication to tradition.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1146],"tags":[1940],"ppma_author":[1941],"class_list":["post-143193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vintage-and-collectible-guitars","tag-july-2007"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/07_10_LosLobos_031.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1941,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"charles-saufley","display_name":"Charles Saufley","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/charlie-saufley.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/charlie-saufley.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143314,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143193\/revisions\/143314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143193"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=143193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}