Tierra

Originating as an offshoot of El Chicano in the early 1970s, Tierra persisted through the decade and finally reached the R&B charts in 1980 with a short run of Afro-Latin-inflected soul interpretations. Former El Chicano members guitarist Rudy Salas and trombonist/percussionist Steve Salas assembled the lineup by adding keyboardist Joey Guerra, bassist Steve Falomir, drummer Philip Madayag, percussionist Andre Baeza, and reed player Bobby Navarrete. Their version of the Intruders’ “Together” climbed to the R&B Top Ten that year while peaking at number 18 on the pop side, marking the group’s only major success. A 1981 reading of the Delfonics’ “La La Means I Love You” still managed to reach the R&B Top 40, though no further substantial hits followed. The band resurfaced in the early 1990s, issuing Tonight in 1993 and A New Beginning two years afterward. After an extended hiatus they returned with the 2001 album Two Worlds: Dos Mundos, followed in 2005 by the ambitious soundtrack Welcome to Café East L.A. Two more projects appeared the next year—Tierra Live on Thump and Together Again on Boardwalk Entertainment Company. Personnel shifts continued as the group kept performing; On the Right Track arrived in 2008. Live work persisted without new recordings until On Solid Ground surfaced in 2013. In October 2017 bandleader Rudy Salas unveiled the album !Ya Llego? during an appearance on YouTube’s Thee Mr. Duran Show; Music Access issued it the following month. Thump Records released Keep It Going in early December 2020, serving as Rudy Salas’s final recording before his death on December 29, 2020, at age 72.