How’s this for a job ad? Help Wanted: Someone to work a few evenings a week, doing what you love, with a group of your closest friends.
Sounds like a job most of us only dream about. But neighborhood resident Juan Vasquez has made it a reality.
He sings lead and plays the vihuela (a small guitar-like instrument) for Mariachi Los Gavilanes, a local mariachi band.
Vasquez and most of the band’s members were brought together in 1995 through their high school in Oak Cliff. The school held tryouts for a mariachi program, and Vasquez, then a senior, decided to audition.
“I had never really been into music until then, but I always wanted to try it,” he says. “Luckily I got the part, and from there on I haven’t stopped.”
In the six years since high school, the band has come a long way. They’re busy most every weekend, usually playing private parties and the occasional Mexican restaurant when they have the time.
Vasquez also has found success as a solo act, having appeared several times on local Spanish-speaking television stations and singing in various festivals and celebrations around town.
This month, the band is headed to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to compete against five other mariachi bands from across the state. With only six professional bands invited each year, it’s an honor just to compete. But this year will be the fifth time Mariachi Los Gavilanes has made the trip south.
“We’ve been real surprised,” Vasquez says, “because there are so many mariachi groups in Dallas. I know other groups that keep calling, asking to be invited, but don’t get picked.”
The band hasn’t won the first-place prize of $5,000 yet, but Vasquez thinks this year might be different.
“Last year was the closest we came,” he says. “But in the competition, everything counts, even the suits. We didn’t have sombreros and had some broken ornaments on the suits — the judges said our music was very good — but that hurt us.”
This time the band made sure that won’t be a problem, ordering new suits, sombreros included.
“This year, we’ll be even sharper, musically and suit-wise,” he says. “We think we have a real good chance of winning.”
Whatever the outcome, Vasquez and friends will just keep doing what they do. Because the best part, he says, is how much they enjoy their work.
“I like it because we’re all friends, and have been for a long time. Some have been with me since junior high. And this is my kind of music, what I was born with. I love it.”
