Speaking of living life, you can actually take Los Lobos roots all the way back to 1970 (that s 40 years, boys and girls, in case you re still doing your ciphering) when Louie Perez and David Hidalgo first began making music and writing songs together in high school. The Long Goodbye is a celebration of those decades of creativity, offering a collection of previously-unreleased Hidalgo/Perez-penned tunes plus one heart-tugging spoken-word piece by Perez. The album s nine songs come across like a classic Doug Sahm album, offering up everything from a little bit of just-right twang with killer chord changes ( When Love Fails ) to just-plain-rock-n-roll crunch ( Don t You Know ). When The Hands Fall Off The Clock is just good fun, featuring Hidalgo s muscular accordion work, while Cure For Love has the vibe of a Marvin Gaye classic with some flutters of cool blues guitar scattered throughout.Many songs are driven by some great natural sounds: catch how Perez wails that big bass drum off Hidalgo s rhythm work on Big August Moon or how the acoustic guitar provides the solid underpinnings for the powerful ponderings of What Good Is Love . Take My Hand finds things stripped down to just a voice, a guitar, and a heart as Hidalgo lets it fly on his own. And speaking of moments that ll turn you inside out, Louie Perez In 1964 is beautiful barrio poetry the perfect prologue to the album s title track. While The Long Goodbye is a song about life in East L.A., the emotion is universal ... which is the key to the songwriting talents of Hidalgo and Perez. Though they have remained true to their roots all these years, their music is as all-embracing and real as life, love, and loss are. The Long Goodbye does a fine job of capturing that feel. - Brian Robbins --jambands.comThe creative impulse that David Hidalgo and Louie Perez bring to Los Lobos might well be camouflaged within the collective efforts of the band that produces such memorable work as Kiko (Slash/Warner Bros, 1992) and The Town and The City (Hollywood, 2006), but this collection of easygoing, informal recordings by the pair illuminate just how they spark the ingenuity of that band from east LA.The simplicity inherent in this set of previously unreleased recordings, completed over a span of four decades, is its greatest virtue, but a deceptive one nonetheless. Hidalgo and Perez are such manifestly intelligent men and musicians; nothing they do is as transparent as this seems, but rather a composite reflection on their lives, individually and together, as human beings and artists.It should come as no surprise that The Long Goodbye so closely resembles a Los Lobos album. After all, Hidalgo and Perez are multi-instrumentalists fully capable of creating the façade of a full band through the miracle of the cassette recorder, with the addition of engineer Larry Hirsch's technical expertise. Nevertheless, the depth of the grooves in "What Good Is Love" and "Big August Moon" are remarkable for the playing's internal motion: it is the sensation of a cooking band."Take My Hand" and "Empty Words" are, in contrast, the soulful renderings of the respective songs as direct means of communication, and a reminder why Hidalgo is such a powerful performer, who becomes the songs he sings and plays; a powerful effect with Los Lobos around him and only a little less so here. "When Love Fails" is a rootsier take on style, the sound of pedal steel enlarging the border of the American south, and along the same lines on "Til The Hands Fall Off the Clock," where Hidalgo and Perez mix polka with R&B; in such a way as to heighten the authenticity of each stylistic motif.The intimacy of these recordings amplifies the joy these two men share in collaborating. Musicians as naturally intuitive as Hidalgo and Perez generate a chemistry that carries over into the songs and their recording, so that a direct connection to the tune feeds their musicianship even as the instrumentals complete the composition; one is not separate from the other. Not surprisingly, then, the duo wastes no notes on The Long Goodbye nor indulge in the inclusion of chords, lyrics or any component of an arrangement that's not absolutely essential.As an unfortunate result of their spartan approach, this CD is woefully brief at less than thirty-five minutes, but the album nevertheless offers a glimpse into an creative relationship that, by all sounds and appearances, continues to gain momentum as time goes on.- Doug Collette --allaboutjazz.comFor more than 35 years, Los Lobos, East Los Angeles born and bred, have enriched an American music scene that has largely taken them for granted. This seems to work for them. Think of this: back in 1987, Los Lobos passionate re-do of La Bamba, from the movie of the same name, hit number one on the charts for two weeks. After years of semi-obscurity, the Wolves had the ears of the American record-buying public. And how did they follow that up? By releasing La Pistola y El Corazon, a collection of originals and Mexican folk songs sung (beautifully) in Spanish. Record buyers went back to Madonna, and Los Lobos hit the road.Now, 22 years later, Los Lobos is still very much together, consistently touring and putting out the occasional awesome record. (1992 s Kiko, with its mystical, world-music feel, was called a masterpiece by several critics.) Perhaps part of the band s secret to staying together is that they take separate vacations: Cesar Rosas, David Hidalgo, and Louie Perez have all put out solo albums or collaborated with others, while Steve Berlin has produced albums by Buckwheat Zydeco, Rickie Lee Jones, and Backyard Tire Fire, among others. Which brings us to The Long Goodbye, the new work by Hidalgo and Perez, friends and songwriting partners for almost 40 years. Together, they ve written such Los Lobos signature songs as Will the Wolf Survive and One Time One Night in America.But the songs on The Long Goodbye are a departure of sorts. They differ from their Lobos classics in the same way that a night with buddies differs from a heart to heart with a best friend. First-person love laments are not really the Wolves style. But on The Long Goodbye, Hidalgo and Perez sing of heartbreak and longing with hard-earned wisdom and maturity.The songs here ride an emotional rollercoaster, kept on track by virtuosic musicianship, the carefully crafted, plainspoken lyrics by Louie Perez, and the heaven-sent music and vocals of David Hidalgo, the only genius in (Los Lobos), according to band mate Berlin. For a sense of the album s range, check out the title track, with its pensive Perez lyric about life s partings: When I got home there were lights on the tree/the kids stood up, they were waiting for me/But again I woke up with a prayer and a sigh/and you know it s a long goodbye.Then go straight to Til the Hands Fall Off the Clock. Here the rueful tone of The Long Goodbye gives way to a frisky, Cajun-style rave-up. Hidalgo s cheery vocals and trademark party-time accordion are irresistible.Other album highlights include In 1964, a Perez spoken-word piece evoking his East L.A. childhood, and Empty Words, a country lament that George Jones should record. Don t You Know is a nice retro rocker, and Take My Hand sweetly offers solace to a downcast lover.Hidalgo and Perez take a quiet, rootsier sidetrack on The Long Goodbye, but longtime fans will know just what they re hearing: the heart and soul of Los Lobos. - Annette Sanchez --Americana Roots