Larry Hernández
photo: the vanguard chronicle · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Larry Hernández was born in Los Angeles in 1977 and raised mostly in Culiacán, Sinaloa, where he taught himself bajo sexto and was already writing his own corridos by age eight. His breakout came almost by accident: a 2009 album recorded in a single day, "16 Narco Corridos," turned him into a norteño-banda star overnight on the strength of blunt, novelistic narco-ballads like its hit "El Baleado."
Hernández has called Chalino Sánchez his single biggest influence and idol, and Chalino's raw, unpolished delivery of true-crime corrido narratives — sung more like reportage than performance — is the direct ancestor of Hernández's own narco-corrido albums like "16 Narco Corridos."
listen forListen to Chalino's "Alma Enamorada" next to Hernández's "Mal Encachado y Buchón" — both keep the vocal flat and the story front and center, letting the events in the lyrics do the dramatic work instead of the singing.
Before he'd released a single original song, Hernández's very first recording project — 65 tracks cut in 1998 — was a tribute to Cornelio Reyna, the bajo-sexto-playing singer whose duo Los Relámpagos del Norte set the template for the plainspoken, story-driven norteño ballad; that same unhurried, conversational delivery is Hernández's default mode even on his own corridos.
listen forCompare Los Relámpagos del Norte's "Ya No Llores" to Hernández's own "Ojalá Que Te Vaya Mal" — the arrangements are decades apart, but the same plainspoken, almost-spoken-word phrasing over a simple accompaniment carries both.