Beauty from ugliness
TUCSON – Father Charles Rourke had a lot of good in him. He believed in the gospel of music, and he spread that gospel passionately. He wanted the young people in his congregation to appreciate and honor the culture of their forefathers, specifically the mariachi music so representative of the Mexican culture.
Father Rourke, though, had a lot of bad in him, too. He was a raging drunk who had a predilection for boys, including the boys under his direction. He molested some and would have molested more if he hadn’t been repelled by many kids under his direction.
All of this is detailed in the new documentary film “Ugly Little Monkeys: The True Story of Los Changitos Feos of Tucson.” The film was made by David E. Valdez and Enrique Castillo, and legendary actor/filmmaker Edward James Olmos served as an executive producer.
When he arrived in Tucson, Rourke was a handsome, charismatic young priest and an accomplished jazz pianist who had shared the stage with Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughn, according to the film. He quickly charmed those in his mostly Mexican-American congregation.
Rourke was exposed to mariachi music and became captivated by it. He formed a mariachi group for boys in
1964 and called it Los Changitos Feos, which in English translates to the Ugly Little Monkeys.
Many early members of Los Changitos Feos conceded in the documentary that the group was terrible when it started, even when it started performing in public. But as the band kept practicing and performing under Rourke’s direction,
Los Changitos Feos got better and better. After establishing a strong reputation in the Tucson area, the group performed on national television and played all over the country, eventually even performing in the Guadalajara area in Mexico.
Boys who only a few years ago loved The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and who had spoken sketchy Spanish became international ambassadors for a form of music about which they had known little only a few years before. Some said their bad Spanish even improved from singing in the language.
The only thing that kept it from being a universally wonderful experience for the boys was Rourke was a raging drunk and predator, and was particularly lecherous, and treacherous, when he was sauced while on the road with the boys. Now middle-aged and older, the early members of Los Changitos Feos talk in the film about fending off the advances of Rourke and learning to work around him and handle their own performances, even as kids, when Rourke was too plastered to function.
Despite all the horrors Rourke imposed on the boys, many admitted in the film he did a lot of good, too. Some of the early members of Los Changitos Feos became prominent professional mariachis and have made a living from the music their entire adult lives. Former members have performed with luminaries including Vicki Carr and Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt, a native Tucsonan, recounts in the film seeing Los Changitos Feos perform at her family’s ranch as her own father got drunk with Father Rourke.
The mariachi youth group and mariachi education movement that we see all over the Southwest and beyond, including the Imperial Valley, started in Tucson with Los Changitos Feos. Many leading mariachi educators, including those teaching mariachi at major universities, are Los Changitos Feos alumni. Los Changitos Feos still exist as a thriving youth mariachi group in Tucson. And Tucson hosts a huge mariachi conference every year.
Though they relished the music and the camaraderie that thrived in the group, The Ugly Little Monkeys had to deal with a lot of ugliness in their early years.
Out of that ugliness, though, came beauty… a youth mariachi movement in this country that has made life better, and richer, for generations of young people.