HUNTINGBURG, Ind. (AP) - When Jose Dubon surveyed Huntingburg’s Hispanic Cultural Festival stage in 2014, he knew he could do better. In front of him, a group of local musicians belted out cumbia songs, a type of dance music popular throughout Latin America, from their instruments. Jose turned to his brothers and declared that day that they’d be up there performing at the event next year. If those guys could do it, he was sure he and his family could, too.
A year passed. When the 2015 festival rolled back around, Grupo Guanaco played one of its first big sets on the stage.
The group is a seven-person, three-generation family ensemble whose members have embraced their musical heritage over the past two years as they continue to improve from an outfit of men who had little combined experience playing musical instruments to a recognizable septet that has many more upbeat years ahead. Through their influence, they also hope to inspire other members of Huntingburg’s Latino community to share their own unique sounds.
“Right now, we’re the only ones out here,” said the group’s drummer Luis Antonio Dubon. “So we don’t have competition. Right now, we don’t have that pressure because we’re the only ones.”
In the animal kingdom, a guanaco is an animal that looks like a llama with fuzzy brown fir and a gray face. The small, slender and humpless camels are native to South America, where they gather in herds on mountains as well as lower plateaus across the central and southern parts of the continent. Because of their history as pack animals, guanacos are seen as hard workers. Over time, the word evolved to mean “brotherhood,” and it is often used as a nickname to refer to people from El Salvador.
Grupo Guanaco primarily plays cumbia, norteño and balada romántica music - all of which are rooted in Latin American culture. Cumbia jams are stuffed with rhythm and percussive elements that incite physical movement, norteño is a type of Mexican music related to polka, and balada songs are slowed-down, romantic love anthems. Right now, all of the tracks they play at events are covers, but they do have some originals in the works. If you ask them, they say they play a little bit of everything.
Five Dubon brothers, their father, and an in-law comprise the group’s core. Luis A.’s brother Jose Dubon, their father Luis, and in-law Mario Franco, were the only members who had any experience as musicians prior to the ensemble’s formation.
Luis A. plays the drums and Jose mashes keys on multiple synthesizers simultaneously to generate the group’s lead guitar and backing horn sounds. Their brother Bertilio - Tilo for short - bellows melodies from his button accordions, rotating between 31- and 34-button squeezeboxes depending on what key the song calls for.
Their other brothers Oscar and Jorge sing and play the guiro respectively. The guiro is like an open-ended, metal gourd with exterior ribbed notches that create a raspy percussive sound. Luis adds an acoustic rhythm guitar to the mix, Mario plays the bass, while three of the brothers’ sons - Oscar, Gabriel and William - also accompany them on stage for a handful of songs when they perform, supplying extra vocals. The result is a familial musical creation that swells with vocal and accordion-driven melodies laced with the culture the Dubon family left nearly 20 years ago.
The Huntingburg family moved from the town of Mizata - which is located in the southwestern Salvadorian department of La Libertad - to Suitland, Maryland, in two waves. Luis’ wife and the boys’ mother, Felipa, and the couple’s oldest sons and youngest daughters came first in 1997, with the others arriving on American soil a little over six months later.
The brothers’ father, Luis, had been living in America for about 13 years before he brought his family to the states. He left El Salvador in 1984 to find work during the country’s civil war. Luis held various jobs to provide for his family from afar, including factory, construction and plumbing positions in Los Angeles and North Hollywood.
Jose made the pilgrimage to Suitland as part of the first group when he was 18 and Luis A. and Tilo came in the second wave when they were in their early teens.
In Mizata, the family lived in a house that had one, big open area with a dirt floor as the living area and also included a walled-off kitchen. They didn’t have electricity or amenities like washing machines or televisions, and the boys shared handmade beds when they slept at night.
But the Dubons didn’t like the close quarters and urban environment of Suitland. Shortly after the second and final group arrived in Maryland, Luis visited a cousin in Huntingburg. He immediately liked what he saw. The family members moved out in waves again, and the Dubons have called the Dubois County town home ever since.
Luis, Jose, Mario and Luis. A. work for Masterbrand, while Tilo is a mechanic for Uebehlor and Sons and Oscar works for Farbest Foods.
Today, they’re still perfecting their playing. Luis A. admitted they still get a little nervous when they play in front of big crowds, but they are much more confident than when they began practicing in April 2015. Every time they play on a bigger stage in front of a bigger audience, he knows they’re getting better.
When they started practicing, about half of the group’s members had musical experience, and in some cases even that knowledge was limited. On top of memorizing the notes that each of the 30-plus accordion buttons produce, Tilo remembered how he had to learn that fingerings would produce different notes depending on which direction the bellows were pressed. Luis A. had no idea how to lay down a beat.
Jose was the most musically gifted in the beginning, and with the aid of some online tutorial videos, he helped them tinker with and flesh-out their early sound.
In addition to the Hispanic Cultural Festival, Grupo Guanaco has also played at other festivals and charity shows in southern Indiana.
“A lot of American people say when we play, ’We don’t know what you’re singing but we like the music,’” Jose laughed.
Members also recently performed at a quinceanera for Jose’s daughter, Melissa, in front of a crowd of about 400 people. Luis A. said the group hopes to soon begin playing weekly at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Huntingburg, broadening their musical range even more. He explained that many iconic Hispanic groups like Los Caminantes and modern touring acts like Montez De Durango played in churches before they made it big.
Huntingburg Mayor Denny Spinner heard the band play for the first time at a Will Read and Sing for Food show at Reflections banquet hall in Huntingburg in February. The local program is operated by Scott Saalman and places local writers and musicians on stages across southern Indiana to create live music and comedy in the form of songs and spoken word essays, with almost all of the proceeds going to charitable causes.
Spinner liked their stuff. He said the group is valuable to the community because it broadens cultural experiences in a town with a population of roughly 6,000 and a growing Latino demographic due to, among other things, an abundance of workforce jobs.
“One of the things that we’ve been trying to focus on is increasing the amount of cultural awareness in the community across the board,” Spinner said. “Arts and culture is important for Dubois County.”
Other ideas the group has for how it might continue to grow include adding another synthesizer player, having Jorge play saxophone (he is a senior at Southridge High School and marched with the Raider Band on its way to a top 10 finish at the Indiana State School Music Association’s state competition last October) and possibly teaching one of the band’s youngest members how to play violin. The band could belong to them someday, if they decide to take it. Members also plan on learning songs with English lyrics and playing Duranguense music, which is similar to norteño but has a noticeably faster tempo.
In the meantime, Grupo Guanaco members have already noticed an increase in people approaching them and inquiring about their history and whether they have any open spots in the band. Recently, Tilo has been giving accordion lessons to interested players and Jose has been teaching a man how to play the guitar. Luis A. said the brothers don’t charge for the musical education, adding that they will try their best to help anyone in the community who wants to learn.
“The point for them when they are learning is maybe to make their own group, not to come with us,” Luis A. said. “People are getting more involved.”
While they said there’s a chance they might add a member or two in the future, the Dubons hope other groups emerge and challenge them to refine and further diversify their sound. The group’s talents are both bringing them closer together as a family and extending their reach and influence in the community.
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Source: Dubois County Herald, https://bit.ly/2or8als
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Information from: The Herald, https://www.dcherald.com
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