This historian dug into old records and found a lost chapter of Chicano L.A. music culture

One time successful December 2022, Ruben Molina — DJ, grounds collector, and assemblage historiographer — received a telephone astir a postulation of 78rpm records successful Azusa. What awaited him weren’t conscionable slabs of fragile shellac, galore scarred with scratches: “These were each from 1953-55, each aboriginal bushed and blues, and the sleeves were tagged up with vicinity and schoolhouse nine names,” helium explained. These tags, near connected fading labels and torn grounds sleeves, tin beryllium recovered connected countless singles and albums from the era, informal markers of who radical were and wherever they came from.

As Molina learned, the postulation belonged to the precocious Julia Juarez, a subordinate of the Rhythm-Aires, a trio of teenage Chicanas from Azusa who threw parties successful the aboriginal ’50s. On 1 yellowed sleeve, helium recovered a hand-drawn Rhythm-Aires logo, surrounded by a roll-call of friends nicknamed aft their neighborhoods: “Kenny De Ontario,” “Victor De Pomona,” “Annie-Lara De Chino.” USC journalism prof and longtime grounds collector Oscar Garza describes these markings arsenic “Chicano hieroglyphics… a reflection of the friends who shared the memories of that opus oregon album.” Molina saw the records and their scrawls arsenic street-level snapshots of Mexican American younker life: “stories from the bottommost up,” arsenic helium describes. They straight inspired his latest book: “The Dreamy Side: Rhythm & Blues and Chicano Culture successful 1950s Los Angeles.”

Across its 140-plus pages, the publication traces a postwar scenery of Chicano younker civilization done idiosyncratic essays, interrogation testimonials, and implicit a 100 vintage photos, enactment ads, and scans of grounds labels and medium covers, galore with those tags. As with Molina’s erstwhile books, including his groundbreaking “Chicano Soul: Recordings and History of an American Culture” (2007), The Dreamy Side” offers an alternate attack to section Chicano taste history. University of Houston historiographer Dr. Alex LaRotta, who wrote the foreword to the 2nd variation of “Chicano Soul” (2017), said Molina excels astatine telling “the people’s past of Chicano stone and psyche music,” lauding however his enactment embodies “the value of section cognition and preservations of barrio memories.”

Front screen of “The Dreamy Side” book

(Courtesy of Ruben Molina)

In “The Dreamy Side,” Molina chronicles the heady play betwixt the extremity of the pachuco epoch of zoot suits and jazz parties successful the 1940s, up to the late-1950s emergence of Chicano stone ’n’ rotation stars similar Ritchie Valens and Thee Midniters. Dr. Michelle Habell-Pallán, a autochthonal of Downey and 1 of the curators/authors down 2017’s “American Sabor” exhibition/book astir Latino euphony successful the U.S., says that portion this generation’s “parents were listening to Mexican music, they were listening to stone ’n’ roll.” Then-teens similar Julia Juarez and her friends came of property dancing to balladeers similar Johnny Ace and honking sax players similar Chuck Higgins portion tuning into vigor DJs similar KRKD’s Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg and KGFJ’s Ray Robinson. The book’s rubric nods to different famed DJ — Art Laboe — whose “Oldies But Goodies” compilations were divided betwixt the ballad-heavy “dreamy side” and dance-centric “jump side.”

As Molina writes, these records, mostly from Black vocal harmony and R&B artists, “played a pivotal relation successful shaping Chicano culture, peculiarly wrong the teen pachuco and cholo subcultures … songs that became rites of passage.” However, due to the fact that the artists were not of Mexican descent, Chicano euphony histories often place oregon underplay this era. LaRotta lauds “The Dreamy Side” for “establishing a mislaid humanities transportation successful Chicano culture,” and Molina wanted his caller publication to “fill the void,” insisting, “what they began successful the ’50s, it stayed. It didn’t permission us.”

Centering assemblage stories has been Molina’s attack to taste past for decades. Born successful El Paso, Molina was 5 erstwhile helium and his household moved to Elysian Valley successful 1958. “It was nice, a precise mixed working‑class neighborhood…. There was ever euphony around,” helium recalled. “My ma was into Motown… my dada into the Mexican standards and jazz.” In the 1960s, Molina and his friends began calling their vicinity “Frog Town” aft the section fauna successful the adjacent L.A. River. These memories became the ground for his vicinity history, “Down By the River: Elysian Valley and the Age of Frog Town” (2024). Molina straight traced his fascination with psyche euphony and akin “oldies” to a younker spent successful and astir Frog Town, “sitting connected the curb portion the older homeboys kicked backmost with their trunk open, listening to immoderate they had connected an eight-track player.”

Hand drawings and inscriptions from Chicano younker connected the screen of a 45 collected by Ruben Molina

(Courtesy of Ruben Molina)

When helium was successful his aboriginal 50s, aft decades of collecting records and researching philharmonic histories, Molina self-published his archetypal book, “The Old Barrio Guide to Lowrider Soul” (2002), a broad yet focused compendium of what helium described arsenic “romantic grinders” and “mournful tearjerkers … agelong forgotten by the wide nationalist [that] person go a mainstay successful the barrio, handed down similar invaluable household heirlooms.” As with his aboriginal books, “The Old Barrio Guide” made it wide that astir of the oldies beloved successful his assemblage came from African American artists. He recalled erstwhile a trio of women asked to instrumentality their copies of “The Old Barrio Guide,” explaining, “We thought this publication was astir Chicano music,” to which Molina replied, “Are you trying to archer maine that you thought Barbara Mason and Billy Stewart were Chicano? I privation you to recognize that what we bask is Black music.”

Ruben Molina holding up a 45

(B+ (Brian Cross))

In “The Dreamy Side,” Molina traces the roots of these cross-cultural philharmonic obsessions to the aboriginal R&B country successful Los Angeles. Drawing from idiosyncratic interviews with Mexican American elders, Molina recounts however teens from Maravilla, La Puente, Clover, and different barrios crisscrossed municipality to store astatine Dolphins of Hollywood successful South Central oregon Flash Records downtown erstwhile they weren’t flocking to concerts thrown by Art Laboe astatine El Monte Legion Stadium oregon Gene Norman astatine the Shrine Auditorium. He writes of however this procreation “found joyousness successful euphony that was … portrayed arsenic improper and immoral by highbrow elites.” However, they weren’t conscionable passively consuming this music, they besides near their marks connected it, rather literally.

Inspired by the tags near by Azusa’s Julia Juarez and her friends, Molina sent implicit 2 twelve seven-inch grounds sleeves to friends to usage arsenic blank canvases. The super-sized “Plaquiasos” (“markings”) section ending the publication features 60 scans combining original, tagged-up records Molina has travel crossed implicit the years positive each his commissioned versions. The second includes Julian Mendoza’s shout-out to the Harbor Area with cities similar Lomita and Carson written successful stylized artifact letters portion Lionzo Perez celebrates Frog Town with names of friends — ”Fausto,” “Sleepy” — positive a hand-drawn frog peering supra the borderline of the 45 sleeve. Among the vintage examples is simply a transcript of the Orlons’ day dedication, “Mr. Twenty-One,” with “LA SAD GIRL - PUENTE 13” written connected its babe bluish statement portion a faded 78 sleeve for the Hollywood Flames’ “Crazy” bears the names and vicinity of East Clover’s Louie Berrera and Jimmy Alcala, implicit with sketched-in three- and four-leaf clovers.

For Molina, “Each grounds serves arsenic a vas for memories, emotions, and experiences — preserving stories that mightiness different slice with time.” What helium recovered successful the 78s that Juarez near down was much than a grounds collection; they were miniature clip capsules from a teenage satellite bound by friendship, community, and music. By documenting them — and inspiring caller markings of his ain — “The Dreamy Side” ensures this vibrant but overlooked section of Los Angeles past doesn’t way disconnected into silence.