ittle Joe’s 75th birthday on stage in Salinas will be a far cry from his 15th birthday, spent in a Temple, Texas cotton field.
Little Joe y La Familia perform on Friday Oct. 16 at Hacienda Grill; on that hot day in 1955, Little Joe’s mom told him that he didn’t have to pick cotton that day because it was his birthday. But he wanted to go.
“I said, ‘No, no. I can break my record for picking cotton today,’” he says. “I don’t remember how many pounds I picked, but I was really proud.’”
Later that same year, Joe got five bucks to perform with his cousin’s band at a gig in Cameron, Texas.
“I was blown away because it took a lot of cotton – at a penny a pound – to make 5 bucks,” he says.
Tex Mex was hardly a genre when Little Joe first started playing 60 years ago. Growing up in a black neighborhood in Temple, Joe was influenced equally by the sounds of R&B and the country music that dominated the airwaves.
He started touring in the early 1960s, and made his way to California and the Bay Area in the middle of the decade, at the height of the hippie era and the start of the Chicano Civil Rights movement.
“Musicians from all over the world would converge on the Bay Area,” Joe says. “It just changed my whole outlook about a lot of things. Shortly after that, I started supporting the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez.”
Five Grammy awards and 50 albums later, Little Joe’s career keeps on rolling. 2012’s Evolution continues his winning streak. Songs like “Casita de Oro” are filled with joyous conjunto vibes, all festive accordion and triumphant brass blasts. They’re the type of jams that make charros grab their old ladies tight and step into the night.
It’s also the type of song Little Joe can practically do in his sleep. But true living legends don’t rest on past glories. He’s used his success to help promote and assist community outreach in his hometown, where he lives to this day.
“I think the best thing music has given me is a forum to speak to the issues that need to be talked about,” Joe says. “Being able to help others, that’s so gratifying.”
LITTLE JOE Y LA FAMILIA. 9pm Friday, Oct. 16. Hacienda Mexican Grill, 1449 North Davis Road, Salinas. $30. 424-6400.
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