“So music was a way of escaping, of thinking there was hope.” “The war in Vietnam had started, and we all knew or knew of someone who had been drafted, had been killed or had come back wounded,” said Valdez, who grew up in the Estrada Courts housing project. Tony Valdez, who as a teenager in the early 1960s served as the Paramount’s master of ceremonies before he went on to become a reporter with KTTV-TV Channel 11, said that most local bands and their audiences were made up of low-income Latino youths. The 1960s and ‘70s brought Chicano rock groups like Cannibal and the Headhunters and Thee Midniters, followed by Los Illegals and Thee Undertakers in the 1980s. “We feel that it is important to work with this sector also, because they are young people who return to the community and need to know that they have support,” Ramírez Sánchez said.įor the next several decades, the building shook with appearances by Benny Goodman Don Tosti (best-known for his song “Pachuco Boogie”) Little Julián Herrera, the first Chicano R&B singer and salsa giants like Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. Carmelita Ramírez Sánchez, the conservatory’s current director, said that the institution has served about 8,000 students, many drawn from Los Angeles County juvenile detention centers. Later, the conservatory added services to enable young people and entire families to acquire and develop skills in radio production, podcasting, music and digital content creation, and photography. “We wanted to emulate the Radiotron vibe, which was a place of inspiration that provided a sense of belonging and where people saw themselves as artists,” Acevedo said. The first signs of revival took place on the first floor, where in 2010 he opened the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory, a nonprofit offering free music lessons in guitar, piano, keyboards, trumpet and DJ-ing. Since he took over the building that houses the Paramount Ballroom in 2004, Acevedo has invested $800,000 and countless hours of labor in it.
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