POPULAR REFRAINS REGIONAL MEXICAN MUSIC STRUGGLES TO GAIN ATTENTION DESPITE THE GENRE'S MILLIONS OF FANS.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

IN NEIGHBORHOODS across Southern California, regional Mexican music is often heard blaring from boom boxes.

And they're not just listening to Vicente Fernandez - the crowned king of ranchera music - whose sentimental songs about his love for Mexico drew scores of people to the Universal Amphitheatre for three shows last November. They're listening to locally produced corridos - Mexican ballads about the issues or events of the day - by home-grown artists such as Jenni Rivera.

The 32-year-old Long Beach native, known in regional Mexican circles as the First Lady of Corrido, was selling her cassettes at swap meets and mom-and-pop stores before she started to get booked at clubs. Today she is among the freshest young voices in regional Mexican music, which, despite its huge popularity and sales, often goes unrecognized in the musical establishment.

``I've been through a whole lot in my life,'' Rivera says. She was wed and a mother by the time she finished high school. Her husband was opposed to her going to college and working, which she did anyway, earning a certificate to practice real estate.

When Rivera's marriage fell apart, she was 8 months pregnant with her second child. Both she and her 4-year-old daughter were living in a garage at the time when Rivera began to write corridos about strong women.

``I think that really shocks people because nobody sings about things like that,'' Rivera says. ``Female artists in our culture tend to sing love ballads, but I wanted to bust that stigma. I wanted to be real.''

The favorite

Rivera's accurate and convincing stories of the street have grown in popularity among fans of regional Mexican, hands down the best-selling Latin music genre in the United States.

The latest figures from the Recording Industry Association of America show that in the year 2000 regional Mexican accounted for 51 percent of all Latin music sold in the United States - a sum totaling more than $600 million. Its more fashionable cousins, Spanish-language pop, which includes rock, captured 33 percent of the market, and tropical, 16 percent.

Yet like many artists who compose and perform this music, including her brothers Juan and Lupillo, Rivera has been unsuccessful at bolstering interest from those outside her niche, with some exceptions. In 1999, President Bill Clinton honored Tex-Mex originator Lydia Mendoza with the National Medal of Arts. The following year the Recording Academy established the Latin Grammys to recognize such genres as regional Mexican. However, that particular music ended up getting very little recognition during the broadcast except from performers in support of the Van Nuys-based Fonovisa label and its artists, who boycotted in protest.

Jorge Hernandez was among the no shows, but says he holds no grudge against the industry. Why should he? His San Jose-based norteno group Los Tigres del Norte are hugely popular.

They sell millions of records, write chart-busters and packs arenas all over the United States and Mexico.

``If I don't hear from the mayor or the governor or the Grammys,'' Hernandez laughs, ``it doesn't matter. What makes our group feel successful is when people applaud us after a show. The rest is just politics.''

Debate over relevance

This is a sentiment shared by many in the regional Mexican community, especially by those who perform the least recognized music of the bunch: The corrido. Guillermo E. Hernandez, director of UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center and a Spanish professor, believes many people consider the corrido to be in poor taste and insignificant to everyday life, which is far from reality.

Proof can be found in the Chicano Studies Research Center partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, which led to the exhibition ``Corridos sin Fronteras: A New World Ballad Tradition,'' traveling across America through 2005. On May 18, it opens at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose, where it will run through Aug. 11. A date for Los Angeles has not been set.

``The corrido has all the qualities of aesthetics and history,'' says Hernandez. ``It's a multidisciplinary expression where sociologists, literary critics, historians, ethnomusicologists and so on and so on and then in the arts, humanities, social sciences can gain a lot of knowledge from the corrido.''

Traditionally, the corrido has immortalized heroes of the Mexican Revolution, the founder of the farm workers movement, Cesar Chavez, and victims of police aggression. A famous corrido is 1929's ``The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez,'' a song based on the 1901 case in which a Mexican ranch hand shot and killed a sheriff in self-defense. As the story goes, Cortez was being questioned about the theft of a horse when an argument broke out.

Deputies opened fire on the ranch, wounding Cortez's brother. In retaliation, Cortez fatally shot the sheriff and then fled the scene. Texas Rangers carried out an all-out man hunt for Cortez, capturing him 10 days later in south Texas.

A jury of white Texans convicted and sentenced Cortez to jail although he was later pardoned.

With attitude

While ``The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez'' continues to be be performed today, new corridos originate in the streets, where artists such as Rivera attract followers with their stories - sometimes true, sometimes made up - about women of cunning like ``La Chacalosa'' or ``Jackal Woman.''

Her adventurous tale of a drug lord's daughter on the run from the law is what Rivera calls a narcocorrido. A narcocorrido can be likened to gangster rap.

``It's like honoring the bad guys, which is not the best thing to sing about, but it's a reality for a lot of people out there that live this way,'' Rivera says. ``So why not sing about it and make a lot of money while you're at it?''

Because of the subject matter, corridos have been banned from many radio stations' playlists. One exception is the Burbank-based Que Buena (KBUA 94.3/105.5 FM).

The station is one of the biggest promoters of regional Mexican, recognizing the most popular artists at its annual Premios Que Buena. Late last year, the sold-out event filled the Universal Amphitheatre. KBUA program director Pepe Garza says the acclaimed corridos artists probably never will make it to the nomination phase of the Latin Grammys.

``But lucky for us we can still have our night where the whole world arrives in their minks and limos and Rolls Royce because nobody else is looking this way,'' Garza says. ``And thank God so we can live happily ever after in our own little world.''

Sound check

Los Tigres del Norte, ``Uniendo Fronteras'' (Fonovisa) 2001

The latest disc from these 30-plus-year veterans of norteno.

Jenni Rivera, ``Soy Una Mujer'' (Fonovisa) 2001

No need to read between the lyrics, fellas. Jenni Rivera expects nothing less than to be treated with respect, or she'll go looking for love elsewhere.

Various Artists, ``Premios Que Buena 2001'' (Fonovisa) 2001

A great introduction to regional Mexican today.

Want to see live regional Mexican music for yourself? Here's some suggestions:

EL FARALLON RESTAURANT, 3551 Martin Luther King, Jr., Lynwood. Information: [phone].

EL PARRAL, 2800 Firestone Blvd., South Gate. Information: [phone].

EL RODEO, 8825 E. Washington Blvd., Pico Rivera. Information: [phone].

LA FONDA RESTAURANT, 2501 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Information: [phone]

LEONARDO'S NIGHTCLUB, 831 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Lydia Mendoza

(2 -- cover -- color) Jenni Rivera

(3) Los Tigres del Norte, from Rosa Morada, Sinaloa, Mexico, have recorded hundreds of corridos over their 30-year career.

(4) The ``Songstress of the Poor,'' corridos singer Lydia Mendoza - shown here in the early 1980s - received the National Medal of Arts from Bill Clinton in 1999.

(5) Texas Rangers surround the subject of a famous corrido, seated at center, in 1901. ``The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez'' tells the story of a ranch hand who shot a deputy in self-defense.

Box:

Sound check (see text)