Banda La Costeña
Founded in Mazatlán, Sinaloa in 1950 by clarinetist and bandleader Ramón López Alvarado — who began performing at nine and was already directing a Sinaloan banda by fourteen — Banda La Costeña became one of the genre's most enduring outfits, recording close to 300 albums and breaking through nationally with 1993's "Una Aventura," which held the top of Mexican and U.S. Spanish-language radio for months. Known to fans as "La Reina del Pacífico," the band kept touring under new leadership after López Alvarado's 1997 death, and its ranks served as a training ground for Sinaloan banda musicians, including a young Sergio Lizárraga before he founded Banda MS.
we haven’t charted Banda La Costeña yet
this stretch of the river isn’t mapped. we trace the watershed one artist at a time — and we’re always heading further upstream.