If you found yourself lining up for the abuse/rewards of Record Store Day last weekend, you might have noticed—and perhaps purchased if you did—a newly released album by the short-lived East-L.A. Latino psychedelic soul pioneers God’s Children called Music Is The Answer: The Complete Collection. This anthology is the first full-length release of some long lost 1971 recording sessions (eight never-before-issued tracks and six taken from long out-of-print 45s) featuring the incredible voice of “Little Willie G” (Garcia), once of Chicano garage-soul pioneers Thee Midniters. He was one of the three vocalists in God’s Children—along with “Lil’ Ray” Jimenez (another ex-Midniter) and Lydia Amescua—a mixed-gender, multiracial Southern California “brown-eyed soul” group who endeavored to make socially conscious music that spoke to young Latinos.
After Thee Midniters ended Lil’ Ray became a staff songwriter at Columbia Records in New York, working under Seymour Stein the future founder of Sire Records, but his family didn’t like life on the East Coast so he moved them back to California. He was performing in the Central Valley when Willie looked him up. The two former band members decided to work together again and brought in a teenage singer with a powerful voice—Amescua—who named the band. (“Because, well, we’re all God’s Children,” as she said.) Sisters Fawn and Stacy Rymal were added as harmony vocalists.
I must say, I was IN LOVE with this record—absolutely NUTS about it—from the very first song. To my mind God’s Children sound like a lowrider version of the 5th Dimension, or a Chicano Mamas & the Papas backed by War. Both of these comparisons are pretty valid as the session players happened to be some of the very same musicians who backed both of those legendary vocal groups—bassist Carol Kaye, guitarist David T. Walker, drummer Hal Blaine, percussionist Victor Feldman and (the already famous) Leon Russell on piano—as part of Phil Spector’s famed Wrecking Crew. They’re also backed by a 40-piece orchestra. Often when you get one of these “long lost” bands, the music tends to be on a low-fi “demo” level, but not this time. It’s (for the most part) fully slick and polished. Trust me when I tell you that this music will come as a revelation, even if you’re already a fan of Thee Midniters (Dig their classic community anthems “Whittier Blvd.” and “Chicano Power.”) For my tastes, this music is magic—instantly classic stuff.
Little WIllie G. and Lil’ Ray
Sadly such a promising group didn’t last long. The nearest they got to any level of success was with the song “Hey Does Somebody Care”—which was co-written by folk singer Linda Perhacs and Oliver Nelson—getting used as the theme music for an ABC medical drama starring Vince Edwards called Matt Lincoln. The A&R execs at their record label UNI tried to turn them from a socially conscious Latino hippie band into a smooth vocal group, even trying to tell them what sort of clothes to wear. This left them feeling defeated and the group fell apart. Garcia spent a year with the Bay Area Latin rock band Malo, led by Jorge Santana, Carlos’ brother, recording one album with them, 1974’s Ascención. Sadly, he became a junkie, addicted to heroin and cocaine, but a job at a Christian TV station saw him find religion and kick drugs in 1980. Since 1981 he’s had his own ministry and today performs as a sort of elder statesman of Chicano rock and roll. David Hidalgo of Los Lobos produced his Make Up for the Lost Time album in 2000 and he’s worked with both Ry Cooder and Los Lobos along the way. (Rolling Stone declared him “the best singer to come out of East LA.”) Ray Jimenez still works in his recording studio and Lydia Amescua was still performing and singing on stage until fairly recently.
Music Is The Answer: The Complete Collection is released by Minky Records on CD and the above-mentioned RSD limited edition vinyl. I highly recommend picking this one up—Amazon still has copies of the urine-colored (supposed to be “brown”—but it’s not) Record Store Day record for sale (as will many local record stores, I’d imagine)—but luckily you don’t have to take my word for it, as you can sample the entire album below.