A group of local musicians will join a lone wolf (and founding member of the band Los Lobos) onstage in Aurora.
Cesar Rosas is a founding member of the iconic, Grammy award-winning band Los Lobos. He will perform with The Chi-Town Playboys at 8 p.m. Jan. 19 at The Venue in Aurora. The Chi-Town Playboys include Dave Herrero, Ari Seder, Gerald Dowd, Chuck Lacy, Dan Ingenthron and Scott Tipping.
Tipping, of Wheaton, plays guitar with the band and also works as the talent buyer for The Venue. He was in a car accident the day after Christmas and broke his femur and humerus in his right leg and a couple of ribs on his left side. Nonetheless, he is determined to play the show with one of his favorite musicians from one of his favorite bands of all time, Los Lobos.
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“A bunch of us in Chicago have connections to Los Lobos. I first sat in with them in 2009. The band I play with, Backyard Tire Fire, was opening for them and me and the bandleader, Ed (Anderson), got asked to sit in with them at the end of the night,” he said.
“It was a thing where we connected and started to see each other more and doing sit-ins together. Other people in Chicago have a similar connection, including Dave Herrero, who’s my partner in crime in this adventure.”
Last year, Herrero ran into Rosas and encouraged him to sit in on a local blues night.
“I had just gotten the job as talent buyer at The Venue so I said, ‘Hey, tell Cesar if he ever wants to do a proper show, I book a 200-seat room and we could put a band together.’ Within a day, Cesar was like, ‘Let’s do it,'” Tipping said.
“The first show we did as a band happened almost a year to the date of this (upcoming) show. We had so much fun … Cesar said, ‘Let’s do some more.'”
Los Lobos is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year but in between those gigs and when he’s in town — which is frequently — he calls the Chi-Town Playboys.
“It’s really been this magical thing that organically happened,” Tipping said.
Los Lobos is actually from East Los Angeles, but they have deep Chicago connections because of the radio station WXRT 93.1-FM, he said. Longtime WXRT DJ Tom Marker actually introduced their show last year, he said.
“They’ve always had roots in Chicago and have loved being here,” he said, “It’s sort of a second home for them.”
The band was making a documentary and even had a film crew at the show they did last year at The Venue, he said.
“I don’t know how much will end up on the cutting room floor … but it was pretty cool to us to see this little thing we didn’t even know would happen created a little stir,” he said.
Rosas, a singer and guitarist, is “a special musician,” Tipping said, because he knows a lot of the folkloric music Los Lobos plays.
“Los Lobos can do a lot of traditional, folkloric music,” he said. “When they first started as a band, Cesar was known as their crooner. When they first started, Lobos was an acoustic-based band playing all the traditional music their parents and grandparents grew up with. And Cesar was the balladeer. He has this beautiful voice.
“The other side of Cesar is, he’s really into soul music and rock ‘n’ roll music. And playing with him is really a buzz because first of all, a lot of the soul music that he champions is stuff that I adore and all of us adore. He’s got this folkloric side that we’ve all been fans of since we’ve been fans of Los Lobos, but to actually play that material and gain that insight is really something special.”
People will hear a mix of things at the show, Tipping said.
“They’ll hear some of Cesar’s original music, they will hear some traditional folkloric music and they’ll hear some classic blues and soul music,” he said. “It’s really a cool set because … Cesar’s tastes run wild. One of the things that I think is awesome is we’ve assembled this band of people that are these great Chicago musicians and he really lets us go and stretch out and have fun. It’s really a wonderful experience.”
Audiences will enjoy the celebration of a who’s who of Chicago musicians, he said.
“I think the main attraction of course is Cesar Rosas, who in Los Lobos he’s part of a team. And we certainly are a team as the Chi-Town Playboys,” he said. “This is a night where he gets to call the shots and he gets to pick all the songs that he wants to play, sing the stuff that he wants to sing.
“Dave Herrero, who’s a well-known blues artist, will also sing a song or two, as well as myself. It’s a great night. Last year’s show was heralded as one of the best shows The Venue has ever provided. I’m kind of biased because I was playing that show. But I’ve seen that room a lot and it was definitely transcendent in there. There were great vibes and everybody was dancing and having a great time.”
Tipping hopes he will be well enough to play — he had his Fender Stratocaster next to him in the hospital during his recovery. Getting to share a stage with a musician he admires so much is slightly mind blowing, he said.
“After the show last year at The Venue, my mother came up to me and said, ‘Scott, when you were 18 years old, you bought the record ‘Kiko’ and declared Los Lobos as your favorite band. And now you’re playing in a band with one of the founding members of Los Lobos,'” he said.
“It’s hard for me to put into words. There are people who I’ve admired since I was 18 — well over half my life. Being on a contemporary level and being buddies and getting to make music together is pure joy. It’s really a blessing.”
Cesar Rosas and the Chi-Town Playboys
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When: 8 p.m. Jan. 19
Where: The Venue, 21 S. Broadway, Aurora
Tickets: $20-$50
Information: 331-212-8490; themusicvenue.org
Annie Alleman is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News.