In 1965, Robert “Rabbit” Jaramillo and his associates have been on the cusp of turning into rock ‘n’ roll royalty.
Their Eastside quartet, Cannibal and the Headhunters, had a spring smash with “Land of 1,000 Dances.” The hypnotic tune with a memorable “nah na na na nah” refrain earned them appearances on TV music selection applications like “American Bandstand.” They performed at live shows with chart toppers just like the Temptations, the Righteous Brothers, Marvin Gaye and the Rolling Stones. The vocal group’s tightly choreographed performances impressed the Beatles, who requested them to be a gap act for his or her second U.S. tour that summer season.
The Headhunters returned to L.A. in August with the Fab 4 to play two reveals on the Hollywood Bowl simply weeks after the Watts riots. Jaramillo danced with such vitality that his pants ripped whereas he and the others scooted throughout the stage on their behinds, drawing delighted shrieks from the hometown crowd.
“We have been the act, the act!” Jaramillo instructed the Occasions in 2015. “Didn’t make no distinction what shade you might be. We’re right here, we’d carry out, and we’d do our greatest to point out ‘em a very good time.”
When the Beatles run ended just a few nights later, the Headhunters went again on the highway by means of the autumn with one other standard British Invasion act, the Animals.
However Jaramillo and his associates by no means recorded one other hit, and he left the group two years later.
“He needed to maintain going, however he wanted to generate profits for his household,” stated his daughter, Julie Trujillo. “He all the time had remorse about that.”
Jaramillo died Aug. 8 of congestive coronary heart failure in Pueblo, Colo. He was 78.
After leaving the band, he slunk into such musical obscurity that when Tom Waldman started to analysis what turned his 1998 guide “Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll from Southern California,” the phrase was that the previous Headhunter was already useless. As a substitute, Waldman discovered him in Pueblo, the place Jaramillo had moved within the late Seventies to proceed his post-Headhunters profession as a railroad sign maintainer.
His still-strong tenor was reserved for belting gospel songs on the Pentecostal church he attended.
“He was critical and considerate about his profession, not bitter however not exuberant both,” stated Waldman, who ended up writing a musical based mostly on a fictionalized model of the Headhunters. “However definitely, there was all the time a way of pleasure of what that they had carried out.”
The guide sparked renewed curiosity within the Eastside’s Sixties Chicano rock scene, and Jaramillo reunited with bandmates to carry out for just a few extra years earlier than adoring crowds. Because the final surviving Headhunter, he appeared in documentaries and radio interviews for the remainder of his life to recount that magical summer season of 1965 when 4 Mexican Individuals from L.A. proved to the world they may shine subsequent to among the greatest rock teams of all time.
Born within the Northern California metropolis of Colusa to Mexican immigrants, Jaramillo and his household moved to Boyle Heights when he was younger. He grew up in an period when younger Mexican Individuals on the Eastside have been absorbing genres from throughout Los Angeles — doo-wop from South L.A., surf rock from the coast, the tight harmonies and lovelorn lyrics of Mexican trios — to create a definite style afterward referred to as Chicano rock or brown-eyed soul. Whereas attending Lincoln Excessive, Jaramillo, his brother Joe and their good friend Richard Lopez began a gaggle referred to as Bobby and the Classics, training their strikes inside what was a rooster coop within the Jaramillos’ yard.
With the addition of Frankie Garcia as lead singer, Bobby and the Classics renamed themselves the Headhunters after a shrunken head that Jaramillo held on the rearview mirror of his ’49 Chevy. Their stage personas have been based mostly on their neighborhood nicknames: Cannibal for Garcia, Scar for Lopez, YoYo for Joe. Robert was Rabbit due to his massive entrance enamel.
The kids shortly turned native favorites, acting at church halls and auditoriums. An area producer recorded “Land of 1,000 Dances” with members of automotive golf equipment singing alongside and clapping within the studio to re-create the verve of an Eastside occasion. It topped out at No. 30 on the Billboard charts, which Jaramillo came upon whereas selecting peaches in Northern California along with his brother and Lopez to assist their household’s funds.
“We get a name — ‘You man’s gotta come again! The report’s a success!,” Jaramillo recounted many years later in a documentary. “‘We gotta go to this ‘Hullabaloo’ present!’ We made sufficient cash to get our sorry butts again house.”
Eastside Chicano rock group Cannibal and The Headhunters carry out on the NBC TV music present ‘Hullabaloo’ in March 1965 in New York Metropolis, New York. Robert “Rabbit” Jaramillo is second from proper.
(Hullabaloo Archive/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photographs)
Their rollicking look on the nationally syndicated program was what members claimed caught the eye of Paul McCartney, who supposedly instructed Beatles supervisor Brian Epstein he needed the “Nah Nah boys” to open for them.
“I keep in mind asking him how large of a deal that was, and Dad stated, ‘I by no means knew something in regards to the Beatles,’” Trujillo stated. “To him, all he cared about was that he was singing.”
Trujillo stated her father shared anecdotes over time in regards to the Headhunters’ brief stint within the highlight: the time he and Ringo Starr sneaked away from chaperones to get excessive, or when Cher sat on Jaramillo’s lap whereas the 2 took a crowded taxi someplace.
“I do keep in mind my dad saying that their supervisor screwed them a bit, that they weren’t getting any cash and the fellows simply needed to begin careers,” Trujillo stated. “However we didn’t see him as a well-known particular person. We simply noticed him as Dad.”
The performing itch returned to Jaramillo when he retired from the Santa Fe railroad within the Nineteen Nineties and moved again to Southern California. Gregory Esparza joined the Jaramillo brothers and Lopez in 1999 to take the place of Garcia, who had died three years earlier. Esparza stated these Headhunters by no means carried out a lot publicly due to a copyright dispute over the identify, however he remembered rehearsing with the unique members “a whole lot” of instances.
“It was about reliving what that they had at such a younger age — reaching the highest of the mountain at faster-than-light velocity,” stated Esparza, who’d go on to entrance one other legendary Eastside Chicano rock group, Thee Midniters. “Getting that recognition actually meant lots to them.”
He recalled a competition in San Bernardino the place the promoter instructed the group that they wouldn’t receives a commission in the event that they recognized themselves because the Headhunters. “So Rabbit goes on stage, will get a giant smile and stated, ‘You all know who we’re!’ and everybody cheered.”
Well being points introduced Jaramillo again to Colorado within the mid-2000s, however singing by no means left his life. He was inducted into the Chicano Music Corridor of Fame throughout a 2017 ceremony at Su Teatro in Denver, drawing roars from the viewers when he went onstage along with his cane solely to toss it apart and dance to the Headhunters’ signature track. Fellow congregants at Jaramillo’s longtime church, Good Shepherd Fellowship in Pueblo, usually requested him to carry out Christian songs — a favourite was “The Blood That Jesus Shed for Me” by gospel pioneer Andraé Crouch. He additionally beloved to do karaoke along with his grandson Daniel Hernandez, preferring oldies like “Daddy’s Residence” and “Sixteen Candles.”
“Nobody knew who he was, and he by no means stated who he was,” stated Hernandez, a Phoenix resident who grew up in East L.A. however frolicked with Jaramillo in his later years. “However after he sang, we’d all the time have folks shopping for us beers and telling him, ‘Hey, you’re an incredible singer!’”
Jaramillo is survived by two brothers; eight kids; 15 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren. Providers have been held at Good Shepherd Fellowship and ended along with his casket being wheeled out to “Land of 1,000 Dances.”
