Perhaps no rock band is better suited to make an album covering songs by other artists than Los Lobos.

For 40-plus years, this great band from East Los Angeles has made cover tunes a regular part of their live shows, playing their versions of songs from artists as wide ranging as Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead, Marvin Gaye, John Lee Hooker, the Blasters and Cream. In fact, Los Lobos’ biggest commercial success came in 1987 with their chart-topping cover of the Ritchie Valens classic “La Bamba,” for the movie of the same name.

Not only that, but over the course of a dozen studio albums, Los Lobos have shown a deep knowledge of blues, rock and roll, folk and their native Mexican music and have created a rich catalog of songs that’s stylistically diverse, frequently innovative and somehow also cohesive.

But it took a bit of necessity to make “Native Sons,” the covers album that won the Grammy last April for Best Americana Album, a reality.

After signing a deal with New West Records to make a new album, Los Lobos saxophonist/keyboardist Steve Berlin and his bandmates realized they wouldn’t have time to write and record an album of original material in 2020 because there weren’t any real breaks in their tour schedule.

But if the band took writing an album’s worth of songs out of the equation, an album would be doable. A covers album fit that bill.

Of course, 2020 ended up being a whole lot less busy than expected for Los Lobos thanks to the pandemic canceling tour after tour. But Los Lobos stuck with the covers project and it ended up being beneficial to the band, which includes Berlin, David Hidalgo (guitar, accordion, vocals and more), Cesar Rosas (guitar vocals) Louis Perez (guitar, vocals) and Conrad Lozano (bass).

“The interesting thing is we started this record before it (the pandemic) all went down, and in a weird way, it sort of kept us sane, I think,” Berlin said in a recent phone interview. “Once it was safe-ish to travel, we started doing like three or four days a month, maybe like two or three songs and just tried to do whatever we could just to keep the ball rolling, keep ourselves engaged, keep ourselves thinking about music…In a weird way, that’s how we got through it, kind of coming and going and focusing for a little while and then stepping back.”

Deciding on the type of covers album to make, though, was not an easy question to resolve. Berlin thought back to “Llego Navidad,” the 2019 Los Lobos album based around Mexican holiday songs. Feeling a narrow focus helped to make that project work, Berlin, who produced “Native Sons,” proposed limiting the covers album to songs from Los Angeles artists that had influenced Los Lobos.

“There was not unanimity among the band members as far as whether or not it was a good idea,” Berlin said. “I think there was significant pushback and some of the guys were like ‘How’s that going to work?’ and ‘Why are we limiting ourselves? I have songs I want to do that are not about L.A.’ And I just said, my point to them was let’s just see if it works. If it doesn’t work, we’ll pull the plug, whatever. It doesn’t matter. But let’s give it at least a try and see where it takes us. Let’s just see. So with that attitude we started.”

The band found there were plenty of Los Angeles song choices, and they make “Native Sons” a lively, highly entertaining 13-song album that showcases some of the Los Angeles artists that helped shape Los Lobos own music.

Classic rock is represented by a medley of the Buffalo Springfield’s “Bluebird” and “For What it’s Worth.” There’s jump blues with Percy Mayfield’s “Never No More,” and garage rock is represented with “Farmer John” (made popular by the Premiers). Some vintage roots rock comes courtesy of “Flat Top Joint,” a song by good friends and Los Angeles compatriots the Blasters (which was the band Berlin was in before he joined Los Lobos). Soul music enters the mix with War’s “The World Is A Ghetto.” There’s also the sunny pop of Beach Boys’ “Sail On Sailor” and the rich storytelling and country-tinged pop of Jackson Browne’s “Jamaica Say You Will.” Los Lobos’ Mexican musical roots are represented in the songs “Dichoso” and “Los Chucos Suaves.”

With their deep catalog of songs, Los Lobos have typically changed up their set lists from show to show on tour. And now that new drummer Alfredo Ortiz has been on board since touring resumed and is up to speed on the material, the band should have plenty of options for set lists.

“He (Ortiz) used to play with the Beastie Boys for many years” Berlin said. “But we’ll obviously be featuring the new record, which is great because they (the songs) are super fun to play and the fans always seem to enjoy the covers anyway.”

This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2023.