Hector Saldaña – Express-News
When looking for Los Lonely Boys, follow the jam session.
To that end, the stinging electric-guitar blues riff on the other end of my phone meant but one thing: Henry Garza was in the house.
If not on the line, at least within earshot.
“Sorry man, I was doing a sound check with a couple of vintage guitars,” said Garza, jumping on the open line. “Now my brother Ringo is taking it.”
Los Lonely Boys return to the Majestic Theatre on Wednesday. They were last in town for Willie Nelson’s Family Picnic. The Grammy-winning brothers — Henry, JoJo and Ringo — delivered a tight, upbeat set featuring cuts off the new album “Forgiven.”
The Fourth of July wasn’t without its drama. Moments before Los Lonely Boys hit the stage, rumors swept the photo pit that the guitarist was going to be rolled out in a wheelchair and that shooting pictures was verboten.
“I was doing fantastic, but it was just one of those freakish days,” said Henry Garza, 30. “I got out of the hotel that morning and was walking to the bus and, man, I guess I forgot that they made curbs that day.”
He badly twisted his left ankle.
“I thought I broke it. I would have swore I broke it because I heard some crunch going on,” he said. “I did my best to stand up there. I didn’t want to make a big thing of a sprained ankle.”
Much has been made of Los Lonely Boys’ third album, the Steve Jordan-produced “Forgiven.” Did it mark a return? Was it a new beginning? Was it a middle finger to critics?
“Man, I would say it’s just another part of the continuing saga,” said Garza, though he acknowledged that the band’s sophomore album, “Sacred,” was “rushed a lot.”
“The label was expecting something, I guess, on a conveyor-belt basis,” Garza explained. “Unfortunately, music doesn’t really work like that.”
(Read: Another “Heaven” isn’t easy, nor is it the full picture.)
“It’s got to come out naturally. A song like ‘Heaven,’ a song that comes from the true human spirit, it takes time. It’s not something that we can manufacture or force to be done,” said Garza.
“Forgiven” has a message.
“It’s saying, ‘Hey, we’re still here. Our hearts are still going in the right direction. Family is still No. 1, and the Lord before all of that,’” he said. “It’s real stuff.”
Henry Garza, acknowledged by his brothers as being the spiritual leader of the band, said the group is “not ashamed (to show our faith).”
That deep faith was tested in 1996 when his baby son died suddenly. Garza was only 18 when Enrico Jose Garza died of sudden infant death syndrome.
“That was the biggest turning point of my life,” said Garza. “Those first couple of years I was just searching. It was either up or down for me. That was the biggest experience of my life, man. I found the Lord Jesus through that experience.”
That spirit flows in the Stevie Ray Vaughan- and Santana-inspired rock.
Los Lonely Boys proudly call their music “Texican rock ‘n’ roll.”
The back story — of these three poor brothers from San Angelo making it big — resonates and makes them bona fide role models.
“We definitely feel we’re inspirational to people,” said Garza. Filmmaker Hector Galán got at the story in “Los Lonely Boys: Cottonfields and Crossroads.”
“I mean, how many Chicano rock stars have there been? There’s been Richie Valens, Carlos Santana and Los Lobos. I’m not going to consider Ricky Martin. What we do, and what Richie and Los Lobos and Carlos stand for, is something totally different.”