THE STORY OF NARCOCORRIDOS--RIGHT OR WRONG

Elijah Wald's Book Documents The History Of The Controversial Ballads That
Heroize Mexican Drug Traders.

Bouncing around the roads of rural Mexico with long-haul truckers who
picked him up hitchhiking, Elijah Wald had a captive audience. And that is
exactly what the Cambridge, Mass., native wanted.

A former world-music critic for the Boston Globe, Wald was launched on an
unusual yearlong quest that would produce a book chronicling the history of
the narcocorrido, the modern-day twist on the ballads of rural Mexico
traditionally sung by men and driven by accordion-style polkas and waltzes.

Evolving in 19th century rural Mexico from Spanish minstrel styles,
corridos told heroic tales of outlaws, smuggling and gunmen. But in recent
years, they had morphed into controversial songs that recounted the
exploits of Mexico's contemporary drug trade. Though Wald had set off
hitchhiking to save money, he soon realized that being stuck with lonely
and garrulous blue-collar truck drivers for hours on end was the perfect
way to research his topic.

"All the truck drivers are corrido nuts," says Wald, who speaks Spanish.
"I'd tell them what I was doing, and they'd pull out tapes. One guy stopped
at three different places until we found the tape he wanted me to listen
to. They also had a lot of lore, not only about the subject but about the
corridos and the singers. It was a very good education, as well as giving
me a feel for the audience."

Some might wonder if Wald felt nervous hitchhiking and asking questions
about a subculture filled with murderous characters who shoot first and ask
questions later.

But Wald, who first hitchhiked through Mexico in 1987 with his guitar,
playing for tips, finds the country "one of the most massively hospitable
places on the planet." Using truckers' help and making inquiries as he
went, Wald tracked down singers and songwriters, sometimes in remote parts
of rural Mexico.

Some were famous. Others had never been interviewed before. Wald writes
that many were initially suspicious and feared he would steal their songs.

But they were eventually won over by his tenacity, enthusiasm and love of
music--Wald is an accomplished guitarist and approached the musicians as a
fellow musician, often playing for them and recording their music on a
player he carried everywhere.

Out of Wald's research comes "Narcocorrido, A Journey into the Music of
Drugs, Guns and Guerrillas." Published in November by Rayo Press, an
imprint of Harper Collins, the book is available in Spanish and English. In
conjunction with the book, Fonovisa has released a companion CD of songs
("Corridos y Narcocorridos") handpicked by Wald and featuring corrido
giants discussed in the book such as Los Tigres del Norte and Lupillo
Rivera. "How often in a writer's life do you get a whole field of music
which no one has done a book on," asks Wald, who is up for two Grammys
tonight for work on other projects. "You can use the corrido as a window to
look into just about anything contemporary in Mexican culture through eyes
of working-class songwriters rather than educated elites.

"Every important composer of the corrido, with the exception of Chalino
[who was murdered in Sinaloa in 1992] is still around and more than willing
to talk."

A fast-paced blend of music, history, personal travel memoir and reportage,
"Narcocorrido" has been praised for its insights into a musical genre that
has been little-known outside working-class and rural Mexican communities
on both sides of the border. The book is unique, says Guillermo E.
Hernandez, a professor of Spanish and director of the UCLA Chicano Studies
Research Center, who says that Wald "had an insight into the culture that
few outsiders have had."

It is only now that the populist music is beginning to get some respect and
attention from the academic and literary worlds.

"The genre of corridos themselves has been marginalized as a folk tradition
among rural people, and learned and educated people came to disdain it,
they didn't think there was value to it," says Hernandez. But Wald's work
helps change that. "He's dealing with the genius of the composer and the
folk tradition that feeds them. He went beyond the drug world to understand
that the genre has a network of composers, and some are humble people who
compose and perform their songs in buses and others travel in private jets
and play before thousands of people."

Indeed, you might call Wald a rogue sociologist who specializes in
fieldwork collecting the stories of contemporary troubadours. He wants to
document their origins, their history, their struggles and their victories.
And often in the book, you get the feeling that for Wald, the journey is as
enjoyable as the destination.

Tracking Down Songwriters

One wordsmith Wald was eager to track down was Paulino Vargas, whose songs
dating from the 1950s he had heard in the New York office of American
folklorist Alan Lomax. Told that Vargas lived in Durango, Wald hitchhiked
there, only to learn that he had moved to Mexico City. So he stuck out his
thumb and got a ride to the capital, where the trail led him to a corner
store and a young woman who promised to pass on the message.

That evening Vargas called, and they agreed to meet at the store, which
turned out to be owned by his daughter. The great songwriter lived in an
apartment upstairs.

"Songwriters are a pretty articulate bunch; they're funny and eloquent,
even those that can't read and write," Wald says. "I wanted to give them a
way to talk about it in their own words, because these are fascinating people."

Wald recounts how many of the songwriters and musicians came from grinding
poverty and were functionally illiterate, although others are self-educated
men whose bookshelves were crammed with philosophy and history.

Wald talked to songwriters commissioned by drug lords to compose odes to
their glory, a common practice in drug-fueled states such as Sinaloa.

In the Sinaloan hill town of Badiraguato, which is widely known as the
birthplace of generations of marijuana and cocaine traffickers, Wald
tracked down one man who, as the tale went, had been kidnapped by some
narcos and locked in a room until he had composed a corrido of their deeds.

Finding the musician at last, Wald put the question to him and was told
with a laugh that the writer composed the song voluntarily for the drug
trafficker and that the whole business took less than an hour.

Other songwriters told Wald that they preferred not to name names in the
songs, since this could lead to trouble. And in general, Wald writes,
anyone with money can hire a songwriter to pen a tune.

"They give me a list telling me the name of their ranchos, what they do for
a living, if they want me to mention what they do for a living," one
Sinaloan songwriter told Wald. "Some want their name to be used, some not
... because if a corrido comes out saying that they have two, three women
and he has a wife at home, when he gets back she'll be after him with a
broomstick."

Using Ballads to Spread the News

Throughout rural Mexico where literacy rates are low, the corrido
traditionally was used as a sort of oral "newspaper" to spread the news.
Today that practice continues. Wald interviewed corridistas writing about
the Zapatista guerrillas of Chiapas and peasant massacres in Guerrero. The
book cites corridos snatched from the headlines on both sides of the
border: corruption scandals involving former Mexican President Carlos
Salinas and his brother Raul; the plight of undocumented workers; drug
addiction; the Gulf War; the 1992 Los Angeles riots and even the
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, in which the former U.S. president is lauded for
his amatory prowess.

Wald also visited Los Angeles, which he calls "the new corrido frontier,"
where the narcocorrido genre flourishes thanks to a plethora of record
companies, singers, songwriters, clubs and thousands of young Mexican
American fans. In Los Angeles, at least one radio station tried to promote
itself by not playing any corridos. Several Mexican states have banned
narcocorridos from the radio altogether.

Indeed, almost everyone involved with corridos is sensitive to allegations
that many of the songs glorify drug lords and drug use. However, the
singers and songwriters say they're only chronicling real life and point
out that the best songs discuss the plague of drug addiction and violent
death as well as the perceived glory of the trade. Many laud the corrido
for providing young people with insight on their musical heritage.

"Were it not for the narcocorrido, they'd be listening to Eminem, but now
they listen to the narcocorrido, and it gets them into this whole Mexican
pride, and soon they're listening to Jose Alfredo Jimenez," says Wald,
citing a 1950s Mexican star who combined the songwriting ability of George
Gershwin with the fame of Frank Sinatra.

At least one review has faulted Wald for not explaining the corrido within
the context of Mexico and America's war on drugs, but his is not an
academic or political treatise, nor is it the knowing tale of an insider.

In fact, Rene Alegria, editorial director of Rayo Publishing, says Wald's
distance from the culture actually helped him understand the music.

"When you're in the fold, it's sometimes difficult to have perspective,"
Alegria says. "There's really no book out there like this that addresses
the music in a broader context: socially, historically and especially the
oral tradition."

Corridos are only the latest manifestation of Wald's passion for indigenous
and roots music. One of Wald's Grammy nominations is for best historical
album as co-producer, with Chris Strachwitz, of the 40th anniversary
collection of Arhoolie Records, the California label specializing in blues
and ethnic music. Wald also wrote the liner notes, which have been
nominated in the best album notes category.

The book and the Grammy nomination cap a lifetime of interest in American
music for Wald, who recalls playing Woody Guthrie songs on guitar at age 7.
He calls himself a "traditional American musician" who at various times has
played jazz, blues, New Orleans and roots music.

Though he has studied with musicians on three continents, Wald attended New
York University for only one year, and then only because it was near
Greenwich Village, where he wanted to study with a particular guitarist.

He then spent a decade traveling the globe, supporting himself for a time
as a blues musician in Seville, Spain. After moving back to Cambridge, he
landed a job as world music critic for the Globe. He has also written a
critically praised biography about a blues legend called "Josh White:
Society Blues."

Wald's next project delves into the legend of blues musician Robert
Johnson. Meanwhile, he's enjoying feedback from corrido singers and
songwriters in Mexico who have read the book in Spanish as well as Latin
American bands on this side of the border.

"I'm intensely aware of how lucky I am," Wald says. "This isn't my culture,
I haven't grown up around corridos. But people have been very helpful and
encouraging. There's been no backlash. It's not like there were all these
people running around trying to interview corrido composers."