El Vez (1960—)

Unlike most Elvis impersonators, Robert Lopez has created his own successful and unique character from the King's legacy. Looking back on his uneventful life growing up in Chula Vista, California, Lopez recalls that his uncles would wear "continental slacks and slight pompadours in that Elvis style." With this in mind, maybe it is not so surprising that the shy boy from Chula Vista would one day transform himself into the nationally acclaimed Virgin-de-Guadalupe, jumpsuit-wearing, sombrero-sporting, pencil-line-mustachioed Chicano musician/performance artist El Vez.

In 1988, while showcasing an Elvis-inspired kitsch/folk art exhibition at La Luz de Jesús Gallery on Melrose in Los Angeles, a 29 year-old Lopez received his true calling—to combine his talents as a musician (he used to play for the Southern California punk band The Zeroes) with his taste for Mexican kitsch and re-invent himself as El Vez. Just in time for Weep Week (the annual celebration of Elvis Presley's birthday), Lopez traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, where he secured himself a spot at Graceland's hot spot for Elvis impersonators, Bob's Bad Vapors. Lopez's over-the-top costume, super-gelled hair coif, "Mexican Elvis" identifying sign, and Mexican corrido (ballad) cut-n'-mixed into Elvis tunes were a huge success. With the help of newspaper wire services, Lopez became an overnight, nationally recognized celebrity. Certain of his destiny, El Vez—along with his Memphis Mariachis and the hip-gyrating Lovely Elvettes (Gladysita, Lisa Marîa, Prescillita, and Qué Linda Thompson)—went on tour all over the United States and Europe and has received critical recognition and applause from the New York Times and Rolling Stone. He has appeared on such television shows as The Late Night Show, Oprah, and CNN (Cable News Network). El Vez has a dozen CDs out, with titles such as El Vez is Alive, Not Hispanic, G.I. Ay, Ay Blues, and the album A Merry Mex-Mus, in which reindeer called Poncho and Pedro join Santa's team.

El Vez is certainly not only a novelty Elvis act. Along with Mexican mariachi tunes, Lopez uses a range of popular music sounds from the likes of Elvis, David Bowie, T. Rex, Queen, and The Beatles, to address issues such as California's anti-immigration act and California governor Pete Wilson's racism. The lyrics, for example, in his song "Chicanisma" (a version of Elvis' "Little Sister") are critical of the male-dominated Chicano community's oppression of women, while his revision of "Mystery Train" (called "Misery Train") tells the story of Pancho Villa and Los Zapatistas destroying "los capitalistas." "Viva Las Vegas" is a crash course in preconquistador Mexican civilization, mixing musical styles and speeches to discuss the plight of the Mexican immigrant worker. In his album Graciasland —a rockabilly/country version of Paul Simon's Graceland —he identifies the Southwestern United States as the spiritual homeland, Aztlan, for Chicanos. As a reporter for the New York Times wrote in December 1995, "He may look and dress like a young Elvis Presley (though Elvis never had El Vez's pencil-thin mustache), but El Vez is his own creation."

—Frederick Luis Aldama

Further Reading:

Muñoz, José and Celeste Fraser Delgado. Everynight Life: Dance, Music, and Culture. Durham, Duke University Press, 1997.