Guitars, Charro Threads and East LA Showbiz Tradition
By Garrick Rawlings, Columnist
I always wanted my own Charro suit, especially after seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn outfit himself and his band, Double Trouble, in mariachi-styled suits for their triumphant debut at Carnegie Hall in 1984; he was on the rise (documented on the 1997 release Live at Carnegie Hall). I figured if those Texas gringos could pull it off, so could I.
After many years of pondering on it, I figured it was either time to forget about it or time to lay the money down. Once I committed, it didn’t take long for the very valid question to arise, where and when the hell would I wear this beautiful, one-of-a-kind thing? Carnegie Hall ain’t callin’!
It takes a few months for the suit to be made ― all from scratch and by hand ― so I didn’t know when it would be in my possession. Luckily, in the meantime, Tom Gramlich rang me up about being his special guest for his monthly residency (Cinema Sunday!) at the Cinema Bar (Carnegie West) in Culver City, CA. Eureka! Time to debut the suit! It was also the first time I played my somewhat new Candelas classical guitar in public. I’ve always had Spanish songs and Spanish-style guitar songs in my repertoire, but since the guitar is from East LA and the suit from Boyle Heights, why not play a whole set of Spanish-themed tunes for the first time – the power of the suit!
The man who made the suit, the Maestro — Jorge Tello — has a helluva story. He’s been making charro suits since 1984, after immigrating to LA from Guatemala as a young man who made traditional suits (trained by his father, a tailor). He learned he could make more money in the Charro suit business than in traditional suits, so at first, he had to pretend he was Mexican so his mariachi clients wouldn’t question his cred. He eventually made a name for himself and opened up his own shop in 2002. He and his shop, La Casa Del Mariachi, are now world famous for their work.
They are not limited to the Charro suits; they do quinceañera dress, band uniforms, traditional wear and other amazing creations. Jorge and La Casa Del Mariachi is much like what Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors was for the gringos, but for the Chicano/Latino cultures. Nudie suits were popular with the movie/TV cowboy stars and the rhinestone-studded country music stars of the 1950s/60s/70s – the epitome of showbizzy Western wear.
The famed Ukrainian immigrant, Nudie Cohen, started making suits out of a garage in North Hollywood from the late 1940s to 1963, when he opened his most famous shop at 5015 Lankershim, also in North Hollywood, which operated until 1994. He went on to outfit the cosmic hippy country rockers like the Flying Burrito Brothers and beyond — Jimmy Page’s black dragon suit, ZZ Top suits, etc.
My path to Jorge was laid down by my friend Tomás Delgado, the third-generation luthier/owner-operator ofCandelas Guitarsin East LA on Cesar Chavez Avenue. (or whatever they are calling it now). My path to Tomás and Candelas was via a segment on the PBS show Visiting… with Hugh Howser (of California’s Gold fame) back in 1995. I was in the market for a nylon-stringed guitar, either classical or flamenco, but I didn’t know anything about these types of guitars versus the steel-stringed guitars I do know about.
I was curious why I had never heard of Candelas, since I thought I knew a lot about guitars and a little about local Latin artists like Los Lobos, Ozomatli, etc. I figured if the Candelas instruments were good ones, surely some of these hombres would be playing them. One day I went into the storefront shop, and I learned about Tomás’ predecessors from the stories and photos on the walls of the shop while he was busy with a customer.
In Mexico City, Tomás’ grandfather built guitars for Andrés Segovia (the virtuoso godfather of classical Spanish guitar) and his father built guitars for José Feliciano in his shop formerly on Sunset Boulevard. Tomás & co. have built guitars for the Los Lobos guys, Charo, Ozomatli, flamenco artist Adam Del Monte and many others, as did his forefathers. When Tomás finished with the customer at the counter, I told him the same story of my ‘Candelas discovery’ that I just wrote here, and he asked, “Did you see who I was helping at the counter?” – I did not, he said, “That was Jackson Browne picking up his new requinto.”
Obviously, I was in the right place. He schooled me on the differences between the types of nylon-stringed guitars, the different woods he uses, and let me try a bunch of them out, and I did that a few more times before I finally bought one more classically styled than flamenco. I really loved it, and 10 years into playing it, just as it was opening up and sounding better than ever, it was stolen along with other treasures, out of my garage studio in Hermosa Beach.
Over a dozen years later, upon re-relocating back to LA a few years ago, I went to see Tomás about replacing my stolen Candelas, and once again, I love my Candelas! Too long without one. Back to the suit…
There is a Charro suit maker a door down from Candelas Guitars, El Charrito. I’d been peeking in there for years on every Candelas visit. I finally asked Tomás about this shop and his thoughts on Charro suit makers. He told me next door was good, but I should also visit his friend Jorge at La Casa Del Mariachi on 1st Street in Boyle Heights, directly across the street from LA’s famous Mariachi Square.
It was a lovely experience. Jorge’s English is as bad as my Spanish, so it took some time to hammer out the details. The whole thing was fun; there’s no physical catalog nor online selections to click, but there’s plenty of old scrapbooks and photo albums documenting his work over the years, so I leafed through those and pointed at this and pointed at that until we got it together. What really confirmed I was in the right place was turning onto a page with photos of singer/songwriter/guitar hero of mine, Joe Walsh, standing nearly in the same spot in the shop as he was wearing his new Jorge-made suit, hell, if it’s good enough for Joe, it’s for sure good enough for me!
The hat was another story entirely. I thought one of my black cowboy hats would work, but those didn’t look right, and I don’t feel like I’ve earned the privilege, nor could I rock a proper Sombrero. I thought I’d just find a hatter (one who makes hats from scratch — as I’ve hired for cowboy hats) to make a bolero/gaucho style of hat, but yet in another sad sign of the times, there are no proper ‘hatters’ left in all of the southland. Not only was this a cowboy town, but it was also a movie-cowboy town equal to none other in the world, where you could either rent/buy/or have made any garment, especially Western, and now it’s a thing of the past.
With the help of my wardrobe stylist friend Marsha Perloff, luckily, I found an ‘almost’ hatter who was leaving his retail hat shaper gig at Jim’s Western Wear in the city of San Fernando, California, to join a traveling rodeo as a shaper. He didn’t have a proper blank to shape into a traditional bolero/gaucho style, so we improvised by cutting down a Western dimensionally sized blank by Serratelli Hat Company, and did the best we could with the Western shaping block. We still came up with a good approximation that’ll work just fine until I get to Spain or Argentina.
Finding the proper hat band, Willow Lane Hat Co, Yoakum, Texas, and chinstrap, South Texas Tack, Brenham, Texas, was another adventure entirely.
Great LA Times story from 2013 on Jorge & shop. https://tinyurl.com/charromariachi