Mike Laure

The blend of crisp tropical grooves and stateside rock & roll secured for Mike Laure the nickname "El Rey del Trópico." Jalisco gave him life in 1939, and during his formative years he absorbed the sounds of numerous rock acts that crossed the border; he even lifted the name Las Cometas for his own outfit from the ensemble fronted by his idol, Bill Haley. He tempered those rock & roll leanings by folding in Cumbia patterns absorbed from Colombia's Sonora Dinamita. The resulting mixture birthed an entirely fresh genre called chunchaca, which delivered Laure a string of Mexican successes in the mid-'60s such as "Banda Borracha," "Rajita de Canela," and "Tiburón, Tiburón." In the early '70s his cousin Chelo, the pivotal member of the band, departed to launch a thriving solo career. Although a handful of additional hits arrived in the mid-'70s, Mike Laure's stature had faded by the 1980s. A stroke in 1990 left him physically weakened, yet he resumed occasional live appearances on a restricted schedule. His reach nevertheless endured across multiple eras of Cumbia musicians, reaching from Rigo Tovar in the '70s through Fito Olivares in the '80s to Yahari in the '90s.