Close your eyes and Vic Love will work his magic and get you lost in the 1950’s when radio played “In the Still of the Night” and many other of yesterday’s oldies.

The difference is that Vic started singing those tunes when they were the Top Ten hits of the day.

Vic, who was born Francisco Víctor Gutiérrez, in Rosenburg, Texas grew up in San Antonio where his mother, Guadalupe, would take him to see Pedro Infante, Miguel Aceves Mejia, El Piporro and countless other Mexican singer-actors perform at the Nacional or Alameda movie theaters.

However, by the time he and classmate Pete Martínez entered a talent contest at Charles Grabner Elementary School and they won a 2^nd Place Trophy in 1956, he was already into doo wop music. So when he entered Lowell J. Thomas Junior High, he joined the school band with the intention of learning to play saxophone.

“Unfortunately, my parents could not afford to buy me a sax and the only horn the school could provide was the trombone, which I played two years,” Vic said during an interview at the Hispanic Entertainment Archives.

Vic was still in junior high when Sunny Ozuna, Martín Mauricio and Martín Rojas were all flipping hamburgers at the A&W on Nogalitos Street and in 1957, Robert Kuwamura, Rudy Cardenas and the two Martins became the original Sequence, a doo wop vocal group. Their only musical accompaniment was Kuwamura on guitar. A cappella vocal groups were the thing of the day and Sunny joined the Galaxies as lead singer. With the exception of Mauricio, who went to Fox Tech, everyone else was a Burbank High student.

Meanwhile, Vic and Pete were doing their own thing at sock hops, when Cardenas got married and quit. So Mauricio went looking for them to audition. They were looking for a tenor so it was Vic that got the nod and he joined the Sequence in the summer of 1960 and one of Vic’s first gigs was at Maverick in La Villita.

Rojas then joined the U.S. Marines and was replaced by Reynaldo Sánchez. So the new Sequence was Vic, lead vocals, Kuwamura, Mauricio and Sánchez.

In 1962, they recorded “Night Owl” and “My, My, My” for Pegaso Records as they continued to perform at high school proms and dances, teen clubs, the Undecided plus Slowpokes car clubs and at other venues, where they shared the stage with Sunny, the Dell Kings, Doug Sahm and many other local groups.

In 1963, he married Carmen Albarran and their marriage was blessed with the birth of Yvonne, Yvette, Denise plus Frank and next year they will celebrate their 50^th Anniversary.

“After graduation, we kind of went our own way and needless to say, I entered the workforce but continued as a weekend musician. It was when I was the manager of Hardy’s Shoe’s that I hired a college kid to help me stock. His name was Carlos López and he later became a recognized recording artist as Charlie Crystal, but at that time he played keyboards with The Lovells. So when Jimmy Edward quit, Tony Jiménez hired me to replace José Jiménez, who was Edward’s temporary replacement.

In late 1969, “Cómo Un Perro” and “El Petrolero” were released on Teardrop as a Spanish-language 45 rpm single; and “Tell Me the Truth” and “You’re A Friend of Mine” as an English-language single because that’s the trend that Teardrop Records had started – of recording one English followed by one Spanish release to hit both sides of the Mexican-American market.

A year later, the same concept continued with “Nos Regaña Abuelita / Cuando Yo Te Abraze y Te Bese” and “Let’s Make a Celebration, written by Charlie Crystal, backed by “No More Loneliness” on the Latin Soul label.

“The problem is that the record read ‘canta Víctor Gutiérrez’ on the edge of the label because as I was told, my name and the Lovells did not click. My family and I kicked it around and I think my wife said, ‘How about Vic Love’ and we went with that.”

In the summer of 1971, Jiménez decided to downsize the band, so Vic quit and formed his own nine-piece band and continued to record with the Teardrop label. This band included Arturo Ramírez, keyboards; Ernesto Noriega, guitar; Frank Espinoza, bass; and Bob González, drums; plus Leonard Pérez, tenor sax; Raymond Gutiérrez, trumpet; activist/labor leader Jaimé Martinez on trumpet; and who worked with him at Friedrich Air Conditioning.

Later the band also included Harry Martínez, keyboards; Víctor Montez, guitar; Charlie De León, tenor sax; Bob Garza, tenor and baritone sax; and David Sílva on trumpet.

He then entered the eighties with his own record company and two new 45 rpm singles. Of these “Ansias” sort of became his signature song and he kept working full-time and each weekend performing at weddings and private parties here, in surrounding towns and Houston.

At the beginning of the nineties, Vic suffered a back injury and the band broke up. However, he would form a quick temporary band to fulfill various musical obligations. Making a full-circle, in 1991, Vic rounded up Mauricio, Cardenas plus Sánchez and they regrouped as The Sequence Vocal Group.

“Later, Kuwamura also joined us and we became five,” Vic added. “We recorded a compact disc we titled ‘Volume One’ for Love U Records and we’ve been doing good.”

Since the Sequence vocal group is probably the last of the a-cappella doo wop dinosaurs around, as studio musicians, they are often hired to provide the back-up vocals on projects such as Sunny’s “Brown Brother of Soul” CD and Johnny Ray Canales’ “The Way You Look Tonight” CD.

The Sequence, which now consists of Vic, Cardenas, Sánchez and Eddie Mery, is most popular at class reunions, private parties and sports bars.

Vic, who turned 69 on October 4, still had his six-piece band and that’s important to know because you can hire the Sequence vocal group, the Sequence backed by his group or the Vic Love Band.

So if you’re yearning for some killer vocal/musical artistry, call Vic at (210) 421-5683 or e-mail him at thesequence4@gmail.com.

You haven’t been blown away until you’ve listened to Benny Harp play harmonica and sing.

If a harmonica company would manufacture an instrument that could make anyone sound as good as Harp, it would have to be called a harpmonica.

“My grandfather, Tomas Alvarado Sr., played piano and accordion. My father, Tomas Alvarado Jr. used to fool around with a bajo sexto; and my uncle Robert Alvarado played accordion in the 1950s, so conjunto music was in my blood, but not in my calling,” Harp said during an interview at Barriba Cantina.

“I was a heavy rocker, so I learned to play guitar, but not that heavy metal crap; and in 1973, I joined Zophar Band.

It was also about this time that I had no choice but to join the Edgewood High School choir because it was either that or take typing.

“In choir, we had to do glee club stuff like sing “Ave María,’ classical and opera pieces, but you know what? I learned a lot, like how to use your diaphragm and that’s helped me to this day. Choir was good, it was great and I really got into it.

“As a member of the choir, I was required to learn some piano as part of my homework and my grandparents had a piano. One day, after practice, I saw a little harmonica on top of the piano and I was baffled because there were no kids in the house, so I asked who it belonged to. Nobody knew, so I took it home with me,” Harp said of its eerie unexplained mysterious appearance.

“I was intrigued with the different sounds and in fiddling around to learn the sounds it could produce. I really got into it, so I learned how to create different sounds before I learned how to play a tune.”

As to his stage name, he owes that to a classmate named Johnny Rubio, who the harmonica genius described as a little rocker who had a habit of writing the names of rock bands on his notebook and miscellaneous pieces of paper.

“One day he must have been out of paper because he listed a string of rock band names on my desk top and in a little corner he wrote ‘Benny Harp.’ He denied it, but the name stuck in my head. So one day after a girl heard me playing my harmonica asked for my name, I answered, ‘Benny Harp.’ From that point on, everyone called me Benny Harp.

Incidentally the dictionary defines the harmonica as a mouth organ and some synonyms are mouth harp, jaw harp, French harp and blues harp. Therefore the name fitted him to a tee.

Harp was still in school when Laurel Cruz, who went to Kennedy High School, invited him to a practice session that the Solís brothers – Albert, bass; and Dalbert, drums – were having and after hearing Harp sing, the he wound up becoming the lead vocalist for their band, Live Wire.

“Once I started singing, I put the guitar aside.”

The following year, the band lost their guitar player, broke up and Harp free lanced with different groups. Then in 1978, he started hanging out with the Pérez brothers, who through Bobby Escobedo, he had met in the past.

Henry, guitar; and Roy Pérez, bass; had a rock blues band called the Rhythm Kings and who mainly played Chicano styled blues. Through them he learned about blues artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, plus American blues harmonica icons Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter. Besides guitar, Wolf also played a mean harmonica.

By now Harp was pretty good harmonica player, so needless to say, this music was heaven sent as he set out to hone his skills and entered a new dimension.

“I really didn’t want to play harmonica, but the harmonica found me and up to now, no one knows how it got on top of my grandfather’s piano,” Harp said of the instrument that made him a star.

“Henry Pérez took me under his wing for five years during which I played and lived the blues.”

In 1986, he wed the former Elida Westcott and their marriage lasted until 2008 when she passed on and left a void in his life because she was helpful and supportive in every sense of the word.

A year later, Harp joined Danny Zertuche’s Pure Poison Blues Band in 1987 and as is the case with most local musicians, they have full-time jobs and Harp was no exception. He was a crane helper by day and a bluesman by night. His job was to navigate the crane operator from the ground. Still he was living a blissful life until 1989 when the crane operator cut into a cable. It busted, the live wire snapped, fell across Harp’s chest, electrocuted him and knocked him to the ground.

“Before that, my body was in mint shape and perhaps that’s why I lived. I don’t know how many volts or amperes went through my body and knocked me to the ground, but I was barely conscious and up to this day, I still have some nerve damage,” Harp said as he showed this writer the large scars on his left arm.”

Barely able to walk, it took Harp years to recuperate. Thus it took him years out of his beloved music. Meanwhile the company took care of his expenses and once he got back to normal the first band I joined was Charlie (Cruz) and the Cool Cats.

“In 1997, Zertuche called me for a 10-year reunion and the Pure Poison Blues Band came together again. A couple of years later Tony Cuellar took over it changed its name to Blues Land,” Harp continued.

“Danny Salinas, a former bass player with The Lavells, and Richard San Miguel, a really polished guitar player who is well known in old school music circles had the Beta Blues Bland, were looking for a front guy and I joined their band.”

In 2004, he finally went solo when the Beta Blues Band became the Benny Harp Blues Band and he went on to be known everywhere. His “Sold My Soul” compact disc was released to rave reviews in 2008 and the fact is that one of the testimonials, which could almost fill an entire newspaper page, elevated Harp to international status.

Tunes in the CD convey his inner feeling, great story telling and spiritually. To date, Harp will not reveal his real name, but buy the CD and check out the songwriter credits for this top secret.

The cumulative result is that in 2010 he performed in California with Joey Fender and The 55’s; and in New York City with The Krayolas after he recorded five songs in their “Tipsy Topsy Curvy” CD. He also recorded a CD and performed with Augie Meyers.

This is the same year, he met Nancy Clauss, a classy lady who knows a lot about music and that he considers his soul mate.

Jack Barber on bass, Rene “Mad-Dawg” López on drums plus Danny Aaron and Greg Galindo Jr. alternating on guitar make up the rest of the band.

There’s a strong possibility of a new CD release on Joe Treviño’s Tarantula Records, but meanwhile our readers can enjoy seeing the Benny Harp in action when they perform every Tuesday from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Barriba Cantina on the Riverwalk.

Other opportunity to see Harp in October are as follows, the 11^th with the Krayolas at the Arneson River Theater, on the 20^th at Somebody’s Bar off Rigsby Avenue, on the 21^st at the Musicians for Veterans Patio Andaluz Reunion, El Final, at 8 p.m. at Plaza Guadalupe and on the 27^th with Augie Meyers at a Sunken Gardens blues show.

If you’re curious and can’t wait to see and hear Harp perform, check out his many videos on www.youtube.com. For bookings or to buy his CD, call Harp at (210) 430-6314.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photo montage of 51 images taken by photojournalist Ramón Hernández on this page should serve as a 51,000 word article.

These photos, which are presented in chronological order, are a documentation of circa 50 supporters who endured a 36-hour trip (each way) to participate in the aforementioned press conference.

First on the agenda was a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol Building where all the aforementioned congressmen and women orated. Other speakers included Víctor Gutiérrez, from New York; Chairman of the Bexar County Democratic Party, Manuel Medina; advocate Jaimé Rios, Professor Joseph M. Fonseca Jr. plus Dreamers Yessica and Stephanie Vázquez.

Between several pre-set events, such as a reception, where Carlos Velázquez of New York and others also spoke at the Sam Rayburn Building, everyone had the time to do some sightseeing and buy some souvenirs. A couple of them even got a glimpse of President Barack Obama as he and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to the White House in a motorcade that drove down Pennsylvania Avenue.

After the reception and en route to the rally, some took the time to visit the World War II Memorial and the Martin Luther King Memorial.

By 11:30 p.m. about a hundred activists gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where the Covarrubios brothers belted out a few mariachi tunes and a colorful folkloric group performed. Here Rubén Padilla and Steve Huerta were given the opportunity to voice two passionate speeches.

The historical night ended with Dr. Edurado Ibarra Ortega leading the grito and ringing the bell at exactly midnight.

Minutes later, the San Antonio entourage re-boarded the chartered bus for the return trip home. Now enjoy the photo documentation of three event-filled days and what you see here is 51 of approximately one thousand photographs.

If interested in purchasing a five (5)-CD ROM set of 900 photographs, call HZ at (210) 693-1597 or e-mail hispentarchives@yahoo.com.

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