From the bouncy banda sounds to the melodic mariachi, to the stories heard in corridos, the music of Mexico is an integral cultural component in Tucson and Southern Arizona. So are the boleros, the melancholic, amor-filled songs that enchant lovers and would-be romantics.
In Tucson the boleros were the domain of the Hermanos Perez, a trio of Tucson-born brothers who kept the flame alive with their finely tuned harmonies and exquisite instruments. They may have come from a local barrio, but they reflected the worldly appreciation of the musical form.
Last week, two of the brothers said their goodbyes to their eldest hermano. Frank Perez, known for his silky voice and seamless playing, died Dec. 30. He was 84 years old and is survived by his wife, Angelica, two daughters and one step son.
Frank Perez was the lead singer and the brother who persuaded his siblings Freddy and Johnny to create a trio when they were youngsters growing up on Tucson’s south side.
“We grew up with the music,” said Johnny, the youngest of the three. “We bought the 45s, but our mother knew all the lyrics.”
He was 11 years old and Freddy was 13 when their big brother, who already was performing, persuaded them to form Los Hermanitos Perez in the late 1940s. The little brothers were a big hit among Tucson’s Mexican families, who longed to hear their favorite love songs: “Besame Mucho,” “Solamente Una Vez, “Perfidia,” among many others. Their formation came at a time when Trio Los Panchos of Mexico became the archetype bolero trio as the sweet sound swept across Latin America and Tucson.
The Hermanitos were called to perform at parties, in dance halls and on local Spanish-language radio. Frank Perez, in an interview I did with him in 2015, remembered one of their first big memorable moments — a live on-air performance with Spanish-language radio personality Don Jacinto Orozco at the old Jerry Lee Ho market in Barrio Viejo. But there were other musical memories, like sharing the stage with Bob Hope and an even bigger star, the larger-than-life Mexican crooner Tito Guizar.
By the mid-1950s military service intervened and the brothers disbanded. But some 30 years later they regrouped as the Hermanos Perez and again regaled Tucson with their patented, buttery harmonies.
“It was so surprising that so many people remembered us,” said Johnny in a phone interview Friday. He recalled a night that the trio played the downstairs lounge of the old downtown Santa Rita Hotel on East Broadway where today’s Tucson Electric Power building stands. “We had the place packed.”
The brothers would continue to pack the lounges and venues throughout the 1990s. Their playing days wound down, but in 2003 the trio went into a Tucson studio to create its first and only recording, “Nostalgia,” which included songs by Tucson-born Lalo Guerrero. The brothers occasionally reunited in the mid-2000s and last shared a stage at the Tucson Convention Center when they were inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum in 2015.
While the Perez brothers could have possibly reached a wider audience outside of Tucson and Southern Arizona — like Guerrero, who went to Los Angeles and launched a successful career — the hermanos nonetheless contributed greatly to exposing their audiences to classic Mexican music.
Like Guerrero, and several decades later, Tucsonan Linda Ronstadt, as well as the many mariachi groups that evolved in Tucson, Mexican-American artists have been instrumental in maintaining and growing Mexican music on this side of the border. So much so that that in Mexico there is respect and appreciation for efforts like those of the Hermanos Perez.
Musician John Ronstadt, who grew up listening to the timeless boleros and is part of this rich borderlands musical tradition, said, “I would prefer any day to sing songs in Spanish.”
The music, like the boleros that the Perez brothers sang, or the rancheras that Ronstadt’s cousin Linda recorded, or the memorable compositions by Guerrero, create an instant connection to the past.
“You hold the memories that constantly fold through the music,” said Ronstadt, who has performed in Spanish with other Ronstadt family members over the years.
It is those memories that Frank Perez and his brothers created, for themselves, their families and fans of Los Hermanos Perez.
And those memories flowed last Thursday when the Perez family celebrated Frank’s life and the music, gathering at the Marine Corps League Detachment club in South Tucson, where the trio frequently showcased their talent and love of boleros.
