‘New Mexico lost a legend’
After news of Al Hurricane’s death, an outpouring of condolences, nostagia
“You ain’t a real New Mexican unless you’ve peeled green chile in your grandma’s kitchen while Al Hurricane played in the background.” That’s what one young woman wrote on Twitter Monday, responding to the death of a man named Alberto Nelson Sanchez.
He was better known to New Mexico music lovers — and even nonmusic lovers — as Al Hurricane.
Hurricane’s death Sunday in Albuquerque, following a yearslong battle with prostate cancer, elicited a torrent of sweet memories, condolences, grief and nostalgia. And at almost every turn, they were tinged with a farewell to days gone by.
To many, the singer known for his trademark eye patch and jet-black wig, was emblematic of a happier, friendlier era in New Mexico. Seeing Al Hurricane play a weekend dance at an American Legion Hall or high school gym — and more recently at Indian casinos — seemed to make up for the rest of a tough week.
A woman named Norberta Concho wrote on Facebook: “As a little girl I remember him coming to Laguna Pueblo to play at a dance!!” Another woman posted, “I am deeply sorry to hear this news! I met him in Pueblo in ‘68 and he sang to me; we became friends!”
Barton Bond, former head of media and film and Santa Fe Community College, posted on Facebook, “When I was a teenage DJ at KKIT in Taos in the late 1960s I played all the Sanchez’s records.” Referring to the singer’s mother and former manager, Bennie Sanchez, Bond wrote, “Mrs. Sanchez used to distribute them from the trunk of her big Caddy along with tamales and bizcochitos.”
Poet Hakim Bellamy of Albuquerque noted Hurricane’s passing, simply tweeting: “That’s just mean, 2017.”
Hurricane’s son and band leader, Al Sanchez Jr. — known professionally as Al Hurricane Jr. — became emotional when asked about the reactions from his fans.
“We appreciate all the support,” he said. “He loved his fans. We love all of them.”
The younger Sanchez said in recent years countless people came up to him and other family members to say they were praying for his father. “That kept my dad going,” he said. But in recent months, as the pain from his cancer intensified, the son noted that he began to ask people to pray for Hurricane. “I didn’t want him to suffer anymore,” he said. Even politicians were moved, with officials in both parties heaping praise.
“This is a sad day for all New Mexicans,” Republican Gov. Susana Martinez said through a spokesman. “Very few people have embodied and shared New Mexico culture like Al Hurricane. Our hearts are heavy, but we are thankful for the decades he displayed the best New Mexico had to offer. He will forever be a cultural icon …”
Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales, a Democrat, said in a text to The New Mexican: “Al Hurricane was to New Mexico music what The Beatles were to Rock and Roll. He pioneered a sound that goes hand in hand with our Northern New Mexico heritage. He will be missed but his music will always a part of our way of life.”
Two candidates for governor tweeted about Hurricane. “Al Hurricane united the community when it was needed most,” said Republican Steve Pearce. “He had the power to transcend divides and bring us all together as New Mexicans.” Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham wrote, “New Mexico lost a legend.”
Hurricane’s music was energetic, invigorating, but not political. Even “(El Corrido de) La Prision de Santa Fe,” the song he wrote about the 1980 Penitentiary of New Mexico riot, was just an even-handed, factual account (he would often say he didn’t want to assign blame in his song).
But one politician he always supported was Republican Heather Wilson, a former Republican congresswoman from Albuquerque who now serves as secretary of the Air Force. Hurricane was at Wilson’s 2007 announcement that she would seek the nomination for a U.S. Senate seat — not as a performer, but as a supporter.
At that announcement, he told The New Mexican, he and Wilson had done presentations together for Albuquerque students. At one such event at an Albuquerque middle school, Hurricane said Wilson brought a banjo. She pulled it out and joined him in a song for the students, Hurricane said.
And during Wilson’s unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate, Hurricane played at several Wilson campaign events in Northern New Mexico. At several of these, Wilson and her banjo joined him onstage.
“Al was a great musician and showman,” Wilson told on Monday. “He will be missed.”
Born in Dixon in 1936, Hurricane spent most of his early years in the village of Ojo Sarco. The Sanchez family moved to Albuquerque when Al was 9 years old. His mother gave him the nickname “Hurricane” as a child.
“I couldn’t reach across the table without spilling a bunch of things and knocking everything over,” he told The New Mexican in 1998.
He began performing as a child, working as a strolling troubadour at restaurants in Albuquerque’s Old Town. As a student at Albuquerque High School, Hurricane formed his own band.
His mother began booking rock ‘n’ roll shows at the old Civic Auditorium in Albuquerque in the late 1950s and Hurricane sometimes performed as an opening act or sometimes even as the local “pickup band” for the likes of James Brown, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. He actually toured with Fats Domino, but declined an offer to go to Europe with the New Orleans great in the 1960s. That’s because he did not want to leave his wife and young children.
His recording career began in the 1960s. He cut several instrumental singles in a style labeled “surf rock.” However, his first album, Mi Saxophone, released in 1967, was a Spanish-language record featuring elements of local Hispanic sounds. This was how he established his own style that would serve him for decades.
The Sanchez family — including Hurricane’s younger brothers Morrie (“Tiny Morrie”) and Gabe (“Baby Gaby”) — became a mini-music industry of their own, recording music at their own studio on San Mateo Boulevard in Albuquerque. They distributed records on their Hurricane label and played live at their nightclub — the Far West Club on West Central Avenue.
Hurricane suffered a severe setback in 1969 when, on his way to a gig in southern Colorado his car hit an icy bridge and started to slide.
“It turned over five times and I came out of the driver’s side,” he recalled in 1998. There was a shard of glass stuck in his eye. That’s when he acquired his trademark eye patch.
But the biggest tragedy of his life happened in 1986 when his 2-year-old daughter Lynnea Sanchez was killed. His ex-wife and her new boyfriend were convicted of child abuse leading to death. Sanchez said that the stress of the death caused him to have a heart attack.
Still, Hurricane persevered and kept performing until two years ago when he embarked on a farewell tour that culminated in a show at Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy complex.
Al Sanchez Jr., who became a musician because of his father’s influence, said he intends to keep performing as Al Hurricane Jr.
“My dad named me the bandleader and always told me ‘You’re the boss,’ ” Sanchez said Monday. “But I’d always tell him, ‘We know who the real boss is.’ ”
Funeral services for Al Hurricane are pending.
My dad named me the bandleader and always told me ‘You’re the boss.’ But I’d always tell him, ‘We know who the real boss is.’ ” Al Sanchez Jr.