Heroes and Legends

Heroes and Legends
By Mike Rhodes

Fresno can be an interesting city for a world-class artist, musician, writer, or poet to live in. I remember an older Armenian man that lived about a block from where I grew up in Northwest Fresno. He would oftentimes ride his bike down the street and most people didn’t have a clue who he was. William Saroyan was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author who was known all over the world but who passed largely unnoticed in his own neighborhood.

While Saroyan has some name recognition in Fresno, there are other heroes and legends that go unnoticed and underappreciated in their hometown. Agustin Lira and Patricia Wells Solorzano are some of the most talented musicians in town, but they seldom get the recognition they deserve. Even though they have performed all over the country, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Latin American New Song Festival in San Francisco, and the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, it is possible that you have not heard them play in Fresno. Their musical group is called Alma and together they have produced six CDs.

Agustin Lira founded El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez during the Delano grape strike headed by Cesar Chavez. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, said "You always carry the memory of Agustin’s music with you; it is inspirational, visionary, and spiritual."

Patricia Wells Solorzano joined El Teatro de la Tierra, a non-profit, Fresno-based theatrical group in 1975. She began singing and playing lead guitar with Lira in 1979, and they formed Alma shortly after. Together they have performed throughout this country and internationally.

Lira has directed two new theatrical performances:

Heroes and Legends of the southwest and Mexico come to life through the stirring voices and songs of Lira, Wells Solorzano, and Merlinda Espinoza. El Teatro de la Tierra, Inc. (Theater of the Earth) is a musical journey that will evoke memories, past and present, of such outstanding, dynamic, and unique figures as Cesar Chavez, Gregorio Cortez, Dolores Huerta, Reis Lopes Tijerina, Emma Tenayuca, Emiliano Zapata, Angel Gutierrez, Juan Cortina, and more.

I Am Joaquin is a theatrical dramatization by Patricia Garcia, Teresa "Chiquita" Jewel, and Merlinda Espinoza of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales’s epic Chicano poem I Am Joaquin, accompanied by live music and sound effects. Musicians: Patricia Wells Solorzano, Agustin Lira, Rosemary Montes and Elsa Castillo.

Performances will be at the Fresno Art Museum, 2233 N First, Fresno (southwest corner of First and Clinton), Saturday, October 1, 2005, 7:30 PM; Saturday, October 8, 7:00 PM; Sunday, October 9, 3:00 PM; Friday, October 14, 7:00 PM. For tickets and more information, call El Teatro de la Tierra, Inc.: (559) 237–3016.

Smithsonian CD Release

On September 13, 2005, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released a new CD titled Rolas de Aztlan: Songs of the Chicano Movement, a compilation of 19 tracks recorded between 1966 and 1999 from a wide variety of labels and sources. A remarkable collection of powerful songs, it begins with the United Farm Workers’ strike in California’s San Joaquin Valley in 1965. Many of the artists and groups represented here are grassroots musician-activists and community icons. Here is a sample of these troubadours: Agustin Lira, (Patricia Wells Solorzano and Ravi Knypstra of musical group Alma also perform), Los Perros del Pueblo Nuevo, Los Reyes de Albuquerque, Danny and Luis Valdez, Jose Montoya, Flor del Pueblo, Los Peludos, Los Lobos, Los Alacranes Mojados, and so on.