Los Bravos del Norte de Ramón Ayala

Ramón Ayala y Los Bravos del Norte formed in 1971 after the breakup of Ayala’s duo Los Relámpagos del Norte with Cornelio Reyna; Ayala (accordion, vocals) launched the new band with lead singer/bajo sexto player Antonio Sauceda, cutting early LPs such as La Pura Maña (1971), Estrenos (1971) and Ojitos Soñadores (1972) for Mexican labels, while Ayala’s brother José Luis Ayala anchored drums and, over time, Fidencio Ayala handled bass/backing vocals. In 1974, Eliseo Robles joined as lead singer/bajo sexto, a period that yielded their first gold record with “Chaparra de Mi Amor” and solidified the brisk, accordion-driven norteño template; later 1970s highlights include the album Mi Piquito de Oro (1978) and its title track “Mi Piquito de Oro.” After Robles left in 1988, Juan Antonio Coronado assumed lead vocals, contributing to late-1980s singles like “La Rama del Mezquite” (1989), before Mario Marichalar took over lead vocals/bajo sexto in 1993, a front-line that, with percussionist David Laure, carried the group into the 1990s. A key crossover collaboration arrived with Vicente Fernández on the split album Arriba el Norte y Arriba el Sur, which reached Number 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Albums chart in September 1991. The group’s millennial peak included Quémame los Ojos (2000) and the live set En Vivo… El Hombre y su Música (2001), the latter earning a Grammy for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album; El Número 100 (2002) marked their centennial LP and features the fan favorite “Del Otro Lado del Portón.” Later studio releases such as Cruzando Fronteras (2007) and Regresa el Rey (2012) kept the catalog current; despite the death of longtime drummer José Luis Ayala in 2020, the band continued to tour and record into the mid-2020s under Ramón’s leadership. In 2025, Ramón Ayala announced his retirement from the music industry and embarked on his last Historia de un Final tour accompanied by the Bravos del Norte.

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