They are in the canon because... Rolling Stone Magazine's 200 songs list had "Mi Calle" at number 17. It's surprisingly high but given that musicians and people from the business were part of the voting, it shows how influential the song was.
We're talking 60s pioneers now. One thing to have in mind is that, while in America or Britain rock came from the working classes and art students, in Spain it was, in the beginning, mainly adopted by college students, since they were the only ones with the means to buy electric instruments and/or travel outside Spain, which was, remember, an isolated nation under an authoritarian regime.
In this case the leader of the band was vocalist Pedro Gené, a classically trained piano student from Barcelona who had earned a grant to study in the UK and who returned with a love for the new sounds and an electric guitar (he played rhythm). Soon he formed a band with his music school pal Enrique Fusté (piano) and they recruited Rafael de la Vega (bass), Enrique López (drums) and Willy Nab (a Dutch who played Shadows-style lead guitar despite missing part of his third and fourth left hand fingers). They chose the name Lone Star and signed a contract with La Voz de su Amo (i.e. "His Master's Voice", a label of EMI-Odeon, the Spanish division of EMI).
Unfortunately the company reserved full A&R decisions, one of which was that the group was forced to only record covers, and not only rock covers at that. They were not to release any other format but EPs, which was the predominant format in Spain in those days (singles were rare and LPs were rarer still), which were filled with Italian and Latin covers, Spanish adaptations of bad Elvis songs, timid adaptations of twist songs and the occasional rock song like "My Babe", with Gené singing in Spanish, English and Italian, and with a certain Latin crooner afectation in the Spanish-sung tracks that didn't anticipate the ferocious roar he would be associated with later in his career. Fusté left after the first of those EPs, the group remaining a quartet for the rest of their career, and a short time after Nab was replaced by Joan Miró (no relationship with the famous painter), a high school acquaintance of Gené who at first played workmanlike yet tentative guitar but with the years would evolve into one of the most acclaimed guitarists in the country.
Nevertheless, the band was dissatisfied with the material they were doing, but EMI didn't want to hear about Gene's compositions and ideas. In those times, the pop rock strategy of the company was to have bands who, while not exclusively, would specialize in Spanish language covers of a certain artist. "Los Mustangs are our Beatles, Los Salvajes are our Stones and we need now someone who can be our Animals". So through gritted teeth, the quartet put themselves to work and recorded a cover of "House of the rising sun". And voilá - number #1 in Venezuela and later Spain, where "La casa del sol naciente" outsold the Animals' version.
The same EP had also a cover of "I'm Crying" which cemented their "Spanish Animals" image, so for their next few releases they didn't fail to include an Animals cover (usually with Gené switching to organ) alongside Beatles, Stones, Kinks and even Who covers. The title track of the next EP, "Comprensión", was another hit, and it's a very good cover of "Don't let me be misunderstood" worth hearing. And while the very next one, "Satisfacción" was named after their cover of "Satisfaction" (which, frankly, was done better by Los Salvajes), maybe the best song in it was this cover of "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place".
Given the success of the operation, and that both bands were distributed by the same company, EMI organized an encounter between Lone Star and The Animals in Madrid which included photo-ops, press releases and even a double-bill concert. (Which seems like a classic lame-brained record exec decision. Thank God that Lone Star had more repertoire than just Animals covers, otherwise what was the idea? That people would hear the same songs twice?)
Fortunately, the band did eventually break through this phase. In 1966 EMI concedes two things: a) they can record albums and b) they can record their own songs. Their first album, simply called Lone Star, is a bit uneven and patchy but two of the best songs were included in an accompanying EP: the album opener, "Río Sin Fin", which was a Spanish version of "River Deep Mountain High" (amazingly the tune works in a sparse arrangement as well) and "La Leyenda", their first important composition. The only non-album track from the EP was the title track, a smoking (English sung) version of "It's A Man's Man's Man's World". As a curiosity, during the recording of the album the titular guitar player was Álex Sánchez (who would be their guitar player from the late 70s onwards) due to Joan Miró being busy with his military service (which was mandatory in Spain until the late 90s).
Let's advance to 1968. This is the year in which EPs give way to singles. In fact, despite having already recorded an album, commercially Lone Star would be for many years primarily a singles band, with their albums being mostly special releases showing different sides of the band apart from their singles career. For example their two 1968 albums are thematic: Vuelve el Rock was covers of rock'n'roll oldies and Lone Star en Jazz was what the title suggests. I hear you: Jazz? Yes. Lone Star had formed in the jazz clubs of Barcelona and had good knowledge of the language. They even played jazz dates with the same lineup - only that Pedro Gené switched to piano, Rafael de la Vega played acoustic double bass and Joan Miró switched to vibraphone (!). Here's something from the jazz album.
Actually when the album came out their jazz side was quite well known: they had debuted a two part show in Barcelona and Madrid (a recording of which came out in 2010 under the title Concierto Teatro Infanta Beatriz, Madrid, 1968) where they played a jazz half and a rock half in which they did not pull any punches, and the success was so big that the show was put on tour under the patronage of the Spanish government. But maybe the more important thing about 1968 for the "canon" purposes is THE Lone Star song. "Mi Calle" (which means "My Street"), of course. It's excellent, although it might sound quaint to ears not used to the European pop sounds; but it was, above all, very influential on the urban rockers of the next generation with its lyrics about life in the less glamorous parts of the city.
With this hit they launched their singles era. For years, Lone Star (now with a new drummer, Luis Masdeu, with a rockier, less jazz- and R&B-oriented approach) kept a prolific singles career, usually with the A sides being Spanish language songs oriented to radio - MOR pop compositions, powerful melodic vocals, string arrangements, the works - while the B-sides were in many cases rock songs, harder and/or more progressive than the A-sides, sometimes sung in English. For example here are two of their greatest hits. I don't particularly like the style, but they are well written and performed.
Those other sides were also explored in their albums, which, as stated before, were usually thematic in some way. For example, Spring 70 was marketed as a live album recorded in Germany and Switzerland, but actually the only thing recorded live were probably the audience sounds and the whole thing was just a ploy to release a 100% English language rock album crammed with fabulous musicianship - it's hard to believe how much Joan Miró's guitar playing had grown - with both originals and covers, like this one, of the Zombies' "She's Not There":
Es Largo El Camino from 1972 could actually be considered their second "regular" album after the 1966 one. The best song is probably "Pájaro de fuego" ("Fire Bird"): Gutsy but progressive. Jazzy piano, smoking guitar, 8 minutes. I Like. DON'T MISS IT.
Meanwhile Adelante - Rock En Vivo became their best seller. Despite the misleading name it's not a concert album but a "live in the studio" session. It opened with their usual mid-70s set opener, a hard rock song called "¡Adelante!" which we witness here played live in a TV special from 1975:
Since then, Lone Star spent the rest of the decade as some sort of elder statesmen as rock music came into prominence again in the late 70s, approaching the no-nonsense urban rock of the times with hard driving songs featuring lyrics that frequently touched on social commentary or were filled with self-referential descriptions of the rock and roll world, with several lineup changes over the years and releasing a couple of albums, the most interesting of which is probably Horizonte from 1977. In 1982 they released their last album of new material, which they re-recorded again in 1996 (alongside several old hits and signature songs).
My verdict: I LOVE THEM. I actually only knew "Mi Calle" when I started to research about this band and after sampling them I needed to further investigate these guys. I recommend diving into their catalogue - there are plenty of pearls to find. Believe me.
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