Home Made: ‘Cottonfields and Crossroads’
When documentary filmmaker Hector Galán decided to tell the Los Lonely Boys’ story, he thought his film would be the first to introduce them to a national audience.
“There were 40 people in the audience when I saw them at [Austin’s] Saxon Pub,” Galán says. “Then they took off!”
In 2002, when filming on Los Lonely Boys: Cottonfields and Crossroads began, the Boys’ multiplatinum-selling first album, Austin Music Awards adulation (2004), and their Grammy win (2005) were a mere twinkle in their future – a bright, hard-to-miss twinkle by prognosticator’s standards – and, in the minds of the Texican blues-rockers from San Angelo, what was yet to come was still a dream.
“I filmed them at a very innocent time” Galán says. “So, in the film, when they’re wondering, ‘Are we stars or what?’ that’s genuine.”
Cottonfields and Crossroads marks another entry in what could be called Galán’s Tejano music cycle, joining critically acclaimed documentaries like Songs of the Homeland, Accordion Dreams, and others. While those earlier films sought to reveal and celebrate Tex-Mex music, this film marks an crucial juncture: Los Lonely Boys are the first Texican band to cross over with broad and sustained appeal.
“They learned conjunto and country music at their daddy’s knee,” Galán says. “But they were also listening to the radio like all kids who wanted to make music.”
“I make my own tortilla,” says Henry Garza, the eldest of the three brothers, whose blazing guitarwork has many placing him in the pantheon of Texas guitar legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan, in the film. “I take the ingredients, which I take from all the greats, all the teachers, from the Jimi Hendrix to the Richie Valens to Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Buddy Guy … I take all that … put my own little flavor, roll it up, and say, ‘Here. Taste it.'” In delivering this documentary, Galán does that and more.
4pm, Austin Convention Center
This article appears in March 17 • 2006.