This story was originally published by The Merced FOCUS.
Weekends in the Central Valley followed a rhythm of their own in the 1980s and 90s.
At the end of long days in the fields, packing sheds, and canneries, farmworkers gathered at bars, weddings, quinceañeras, church halls, and crowded dance floors to listen to songs in Spanish sung by performers who looked like them.
“Todas las noches era una fiesta – every night was a party,” Adolfo Sanchez, former lead singer of the popular grupero band Los Kinos, said in Spanish. “People would go from nightclub to nightclub. Wherever they liked the music, they would stay there.”
Lilian Montano was born in Hanford but grew up in Merced. The 74-year-old, a regular at the dances, remembers the great vibe from those days.
“We had, like, 27 bars in Merced,” she said. “You could go walking, and they were everywhere — the Bullfrog, Vaquero, the Supreme. Shit, we’d be dancing four days a week, at least. And if the music wasn’t good, we didn’t go.”
Bands, bars, and crowds sustained the music scene. People followed the music, and the music followed them back. In a region shaped by farm labor, the music scene created space to gather, celebrate, and feel at home.
Then it changed, slowly at first, then all at once. The closure of Castle Air Force Base stripped the city of a steady flow of people and nightlife.
Around the same time, cruising on Main Street was banned, cutting off a central gathering place where young people met, moved, and followed the music.
Those shifts reshaped Merced after dark, and the scene that once filled its streets began to thin out.
The music itself, some say, also began to change. The lyrics were not as romantic as before, and the band’s interactions with their fans began to shift, too.
To fully understand what was lost, one must understand how the scene worked.
A scene built without a system
Musica Grupera bands in the 1980s were working-class Mexican music groups that blended regional folk styles with modern instruments, playing romantic ballads, cumbias, rancheras, and dance songs for everyday people.
Long before streaming or social media, songs traveled through the Valley by word of mouth and by memory.
“There was no Spanish-language radio back then,” Sanchez said. “There was a station in Madera that played for an hour or two at 5 in the afternoon.”
Bands played in bars and clubs nearly every weekend. Crowds learned where the music would be by talking to each other, not by checking online. If a band was good, people showed up. If it wasn’t, they would not go back.
Popular bands of that era included La Migra from Stockton, Los Kinos based in Livingston, and Los Tigres del Norte based in San Jose.
Nightclubs in Atwater, Turlock, and Merced became regular stops. Venues such as Scorpio and the Mixatorium packed people in, shoulder-to-shoulder.
When one band finished a set, crowds crossed the street to the next club. Music pulled people through neighborhoods and across town lines.
From the fields to the stage
One of those men was Sanchez, who started singing and playing guitar at bars before joining other groups that took him on the road and brought him some fame.
He came to Merced in 1969 from Guadalajara at 16 to work the fields with his father, who had been doing the work for more than a decade.
During the week, Sanchez toiled in the fields. The work was different, but the discipline was the same. Farm labor strained the body. Music demanded stamina.
The difference was ownership. Sanchez kept his music earnings. His farm wages went to his father. “It felt nice to have a little coin in my pocket,” he said.
As Sanchez sang more in Spanish, more people born in Mexico would fill the dance floors to hear him sing. “I was very popular,” he said. “I was kind of lucky. Some nightclubs were practically empty, but everywhere I went to play, it was packed.”
After playing the bar scene for some time, Sanchez joined Los Kinos, a band that would allow him to travel across the country and internationally, entertaining the masses with his voice.
Two decades later, a similar story took shape in the same streets, but in bars with different names.
Music still flows through the veins of Enrique Villegas, best known in the Merced County music scene as ‘Peluchin,’ a local musician from the 1990s.
Originally from Agua Azul, Michoacan, Mexico, Villegas came to Merced in 1987. By the early 90s, he was already making waves with his melodic voice at the bars around Merced.
“The Main, the Supreme and La Rana (the frog),” said Villegas of the three main bars in Merced where he performed. “We played banda music, to have fun, to dance. Wherever they would hire us.”
Like many local musicians at the time, Villegas would play on the weekends and have a normal job during the week.
“I would build boats during the week, and on the weekends, we would play, whenever we would get hired,” he said of his work at Centurion in Merced.
The hustle behind the music
It wasn’t all rosy when playing, Villegas said. “It would cost you to earn that (explicit) money,” he said. “If they didn’t like the vibe, they wouldn’t hesitate to kick your ass out.”
He also remembers shady bar owners who refused to pay them and others who changed their minds mid-set.
“One time we got called in at the last minute to cover for another,” said Villegas. “We played the first set, the second set. He told us ‘I’m not going to pay.’”
“We made him pay us for the two hours we played,” he said. “Once he paid, we left. We had to be strong, or they would walk all over us.”
Some promoters would offer them many gigs, he said, but they refused to pay and would offer only exposure.
“We don’t need promotion. We already have a group,” Villegas remembers telling them. “I can’t feed my kids with exposure.”
When the music filled every corner
Dances, Montano said, would happen all around town. The Merced County Fairgrounds held tardeadas – afternoon dances – every weekend.
“Juan Valentin came, Lorenzo de Monte Claro, then Antonio Aguilar,” she said. “You could go in for $10, and kids were free.”
Juan Gabriel, who later became an icon of Mexican music, Montano said, came to Merced when she was 26. A photo of him from the time proudly hangs in her living room.
Selena and Los Dinos, Sonora Santanera, Los Bukis, and her favorite band, Bronco, were among the others she got to see live.
“When Bronco came, we jumped the fence,” Montano said. “They were just starting. I went with my girlfriends before I met (my husband).”
The Valley, she said, was a place where many bands would come and get their start or grow an audience.
“Los Tigres del Norte were there,” Arnold Montano, Lilian’s husband, said. “They came in huaraches (sandals), and they started right there.”
Arnold Montano said that his mom gave them a blessing and wished them well, as she did with many of the musicians in the area.
When they came back later, after gaining some notoriety, the members of Los Tigres thanked his mom and proudly showed her their brand-new boots, he said.
Los Tigres has since garnered various Grammy wins and have become a staple of Mexican music for their powerful lyrics honoring migrants and their plight.
Central Park, the Joaquin Club, and other watering holes, where music was ever-present, came pouring down with memories as Montano remembered those days.
“We got to hang out with Little Joe and La Familia,” she said. “I remember my tía bought a jacket from him, and they signed her jacket. We were sitting up there with them, and they were so friendly and nice.”
Lilian’s niece, Renée Peña, entered that world early. In 1986, when she turned 16, her older aunts needed a designated driver.
“My aunt Alice was getting married and having babies, so my tias always wanted a sober driver,” Peña said, remembering how her aunts gave her one of their IDs. “I went everywhere with them. I was going to the bars at 16 years old.”
She was too young to drink, at least that’s what her aunts told her, but she was there, part of the rhythm of that scene, taking in the music and driving the older women home.
For Montano, those memories stretch across family outings, old concert halls, and community dances.
A city built for nightlife
The bars became part of the music membrane of Merced. Most of them were built to tend to the military service members who worked at Castle Air Force Base, which operated in the Atwater area from 1941 to 1995.
Peña remembered the diverse ethnicities the base drew to the area in the ‘80s and ‘90s. “I’m half Puerto Rican. My father was in the Air Force,” she said.
Her father and uncle’s Air Force service is what led to her parents meeting.
“My uncle didn’t dance, my mother didn’t dance, but my dad and my tia did,” Peña said. “They would win dance contests. Everybody would cheer for them. But because they were Latinos, they would always get second place.”
When it started to shift
Peña remembers how the scene began to change after the city enacted no-cruising ordinances decades ago, which were recently overturned by state law.
Plus, Castle closed as part of a national wave of base closures ushered in after President Bill Cliton took office.
Almost overnight, the base closure put a stranglehold on the steady flow of military men and women looking for nightlife, eats and entertainment.
“It was almost like a crackdown,” she said. “When that kind of thing happens, even if it’s a subtle change like no cruising Main, it puts it down for everybody.”
Back then, Peña remembers, Main Street was four lanes and two-way until it was reduced to two lanes in 1995. Now it’s a one-way, one-lane street.
“We would get dropped off at Roller Land,” she said. “We’d go walking, Main. We were in middle school.”
“After that, they stopped the tardeadas and everything,” added Montano.
What made the music possible
For those who grew up here, the dances, clubs, and tardeadas were not mere side entertainment. They were part of the city’s social life, its family life, and its identity.
“The kids now, they don’t have any outlet,” Montano said. “The tardeada was family day. Everybody was dancing, having fun, food, music.”
When discussing the music industry nowadays, Sanchez believes things haven’t changed much – with one exception.
He always liked how Los Kinos were respectful to their audiences, something he said he’s noticed shifting with new groups.
“They use bad language, they even insult their mothers,” he said of bands that will swear at their audience to sing along or dance when they play. “There is no respect anymore.”
Montano remembers artists treating the public with respect, mothers and mothers-in-law were brought to the front row, and a world where live music did not feel exclusive or priced out of reach.
“When people dressed up,” she said with a slight sigh. “You don’t have that anymore. There’s nowhere to go where it ain’t gonna cost. You gotta mortgage your house. There’s nowhere to dance where you’re not paying $300.”
The old Merced scene, Montano said, was accessible in a way today’s concert economy is not. You did not need to go into debt to see your favorite stars. You just needed to know where to go.
“There were a lot of little local bands,” she said.
But the city drew big names, too.
“Tina Turner came to Merced,” she said. “The Doors came to Merced. Santana came to Merced. Fats Domino came to Merced.”
“I think that’s the essence of Merced,” Peña said.
“Yeah, Merced was music,” Montano added.