2007 ALMA Awards Honor Los Lobos

The 2007 ALMA Awards took place June 1st in Pasadena, CA, but the rest of us will have a chance to see the program tomorrow night, June 5th on ABC (9/8c). While the awards are primarily aimed at the motion picture and television industries, there will be a special award presented to Los Lobos, the band from East L.A. that made it big with their own unique fusion of Mexican and rock music. I can't think of anyone that deserves the award more.

The program will be hosted by Eva Longoria and Mario Lopez and includes a hot salsa number by the duo; the list of presenters is long, notable and star-studded. The musical entertainment will be provided by Beyonce, Prince, Calle 13, Dashboard Confessional, Billy Gibbons, Los Lonely Boys and War.

So here's my gripe. The ALMA awards were created by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in 1965 in order to promote fair, accurate and balanced portrayals of Latins in the entertainment industry - a noble goal. So why, then, is so little of the musical entertainment on tomorrow night's show performed by Latin artists? Calle 13 and Los Lonely Boys alone are worth the price of admission, but what about the rest of the musical acts? Weren't any more Latin music groups available?

Okay, so Billy Gibbons' ZZTop started in Houston, a big Tex-Mex town, and they did name one of their albums Tres Hombres, Beyonce has done duets with Alejandro Sanz and Shakira, War is a multi-cultural group and does some Latin songs. But really, this would have been a perfect opportunity to showcase some of the outstanding Latin artists making the world sing and dance to their rhythms.

Pretty disappointing.