Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501200007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS HENSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
You stare at your plate. The back of your neck is hot from where you feel everyone staring at you - you at a table alone in a place filled with groups of chuckling diners. You alone being sung to in a foreign language by four grown men! They could be singing anything!
You push your Spanish rice into a little orange pile with your fork - avoiding eye contact - until the band is finally gone.
Ah! - but if you are a couple in love! Nothing could be more romantic than a mariachi band at your table! Like a bright lime in your beer, the band adds a splash of color to a restaurant already bubbling with authenticity.
And if you've come to party? What if you want to stuff your face and shout "Wooooooo!" till you're hoarse?
Well, the peppy music is just a table away at El Rodeo on Williamson Road, where live mariachi blasts on the last Tuesday of every month.
Brand-new Roanoker Tracy Fattal saw the sign from the road. "I had no idea what it would be like," she says. "But they are grooving."
On a night just before Christmas the North Carolina-based Mariachi Los Viajeros weave from table to table, playing requests and adding ambiance to a dining room crowded to capacity.
When I arrive they are at a rowdy table playing "Orange Blossom Special." That's the bluegrass song about a train. The violinist is somehow able to laugh with his instrument. He plays, eyes closed, sawing effortlessly on the strings.
Hector Varel, the band's leader and trumpeter, approaches each table and asks if there is a particular song the diners would like to hear. If they can't think of one he can.
Now, a mariachi band is made up of a small number of strolling musicians in traditional Mexican fiesta-wear playing native party tunes and thoughtful ballads. There's usually a violin and a trumpet - plenty of guitar strumming and well-blended vocal harmonies. Like having Herb Alpert at your elbow. Except they also cackle and go, "Aiiee-yiiee-yiiee-yiieeee!!" a lot.
At the next table they begin playing "Feliz Navidad"! The entire restaurant explodes in Yuletide euphoria. Glasses are clinking. People exchange gifts early.
Along with the trumpet and violin the band features two oddly shaped guitars. One is huge with a rounded back and fat strings. It looks more like a cartoon of a guitar. A young man named Errol plays it by drawing the strings towards himself and letting fly big bass-note arrows that ricochet all across the room.
"Not a guitar," says Errol of his instrument, "is guitarron! Is from Guadalajara." So is he, I learn from his broken English. I ask him how long he's been playing the guitarron. "Every day for a long time," he replies.
The other guitar is more like a large ukulele with five strings. It's called the vihuela, which is apparently Spanish for tip jar. It features a rounded back and a sound hole big enough for dollar bills. This is where you tip the band. I ask the gentleman playing it if putting money inside his guitar changes its sound. "Thank you," he says and he grins.
"We have been together since 1990," says Varel. "There is always new members to the band. Errol is new, he joined us this summer." He says the band's turnover is high because the members have families back in Central and South America. "They come to the states to play and make good money, but pretty soon they must go back home."
Varel has been in the U.S. for 13 years. While his close family lives with him in Greensboro, N.C., there are cousins, aunts and uncles he has not seen since he left Nicaragua in the early '80s.
"You may have heard that there were bad times in my home," he says. "Well, I was a musician so I came here to play music for a living."
When the band is at my table, Varel asks, "Seor, is there a song you would like to hear?"
"What about 'Girl From Ipanema'?" I say. This is all I can think of. The composer, Jobim, died recently. It's a standard, though not Mexican.
This is the embarrassing part. When they finish I stuff as many dollar bills as I can find into the vihuela.
At the next table Roanokers Vicki, Trina and Tammy are having a girls' night out.
"Play something loud," they say. They get a Spanish version of "Jailhouse Rock." It is indeed loud. The room comes alive.
Nataneal Cedillo, manager of El Rodeo, says the mariachi band is becoming a popular tradition. "We have had them play for about eight months," he says. "There is always a big crowd, especially for Tuesday."
Penny Heffinger, at the last table, can't think of a request either. "Jailhouse Rock wiped us out," she says of her group.
So the band volunteers the zenith of all traditional Mexican songs. Everyone knows the words to this standard - or rather the word - "Tequila!"
Suddenly, whole parties are raising their margaritas, waving tamales on the ends of their forks, spraying the word in one mutually spicy breath. "Tequila!" shouts Penny Heffinger.
"Tequila!" answer Vicki, Trina and Tammy.
The Mariachi Los Viajeros will be performing again at El Rodeo on Williamson Road on Jan. 24. They start at 7 p.m. and play until 9.
In the meantime, it's evidently killer guitarist week at Ward's Rock Cafe on Jefferson Street. Witness the Yams from Outer Space there on Friday night - Mike Kirby, the region's best barefoot guitarist, is unbelievably good and remarkably funny. And the Richard Jessee Project does its experiments on Saturday night. Heavy stuff.
Also, you can't beat the pizza at On the Rise Bakery on the Roanoke City Market. Thursday and Friday evenings from 5:30 to 7:30 they have what can only be called pizza for the gourmet. Tastes include sun-dried tomatoes, gorgonzola cream sauce, lots of basil and goat cheese.
by CNB