Plata's music a mix of musical cultures
By Rob Thomas
Look on the map, and Texas and Wisconsin are a long way apart. When he
was young, Cris Plata's family would make the long trek from their South
Texas home to Columbus, Wis., every year to spend the season as migrant
workers.
But musically, the states are closer together than you might think. The
German and Polish settlers who brought polka music to Wisconsin also
colonized South Texas, which is why many Tex-Mex bands have accordion
players.
Those kinds of musical connections seem to delight Plata – the way
cultures are so different and yet somehow not so different.
Anyone who has attended a show by Plata and his band, Extra Hot –
and they've been favorites in Madison for years – can attest that
Plata loves all kinds of music. His style of music is a distinctive strain
of Tex-Mex, mixing the progressive country music of Texas
singer-songwriters like Jerry Jeff Walker with the Mexican roots music of
the region, including varieties called "cojunto," "ranchero" and
"norteno."
Norteno music is essentially the music of northern Mexico, a basic and
melodic strain of folk music, while ranchero music is best described as
Mexican country music.
Cojunto music developed in South Texas as a hybrid of the Mexican music
of the region and the European influences brought by settlers, including
the accordion.
"It's pretty hopping when the Germans play it, but in Texas it's kind
of hot during the summer," Plata says. "So what you wind up doing is
slowing it down a little bit. You shuffle your feet on the floor so it's
not quite as strenuous on you, so you can dance all night long."
When Plata was just 6 years old, his parents would invite their friends
from the migrant farms over, and they would play those songs late into the
night. The young Plata initially saw those old tunes as nothing more than
impediments to a good night's sleep.
"They'd come over to the house and be playing until three or four in
the morning, and I'd be in the next room, thinking 'God, I wish they'd cut
that out, I want to get some sleep,' " Plata says. "And it was all these
old songs. To me, I wanted to hear the Beatles and stuff like that."
Eventually, his father taught him how to play the guitar in the Mexican
style and also taught him a few riffs from his favorite non-Mexican
performer, Johnny Cash. When Plata asked to learn rock or blues licks, his
father told him he had to learn those on his own.
Although they returned home to South Texas every year, the family
frequently had to move to where the work was, and Plata soaked up the
music of every region he visited. A season spent on Florida's southern tip
allowed him to hear the sounds of Jamaican music on his radio, while a
stint in Indiana opened his ears to folk and bluegrass music.
"We traveled a lot through the United States as migrant workers, and I
got to listen to a lot of music that normally in South Texas I would not
have a chance to hear," Plata says. "I think that's where my love of all
kinds of music had the seed. As I got older, I started having more of an
appreciation for my dad's style of music and old country music. It was
quite an education without even knowing it."
Of all the places Plata's family traveled to, his father loved
Wisconsin best. He loved the food and the friendliness of the people,
often exclaiming that there was a tavern on every corner in the state,
even in the middle of nowhere. From 1966 through 1977, the family would go
back and forth between Texas and Wisconsin every year.
Plata's parents gave him the option of going to school or working with
the family, and he chose school. In some ways, he says, it was tough being
the only Mexican-American in a class.
"The Anglo kids were really nice. I don't think I could even count on
one hand the number of times I had someone discriminate against me because
I was Chicano. But it's tough to stand out and be the only kid of your
race who goes to school. You're dressed differently, and you're bringing
different kinds of food to school for lunch."
One of the things that helped Plata was his magpie-like ability to
imitate the accents and dialects of others, so he could speak English
without even a trace of a Mexican accent.
Plata made Wisconsin his permanent home in 1977 when he married his
wife, Ann, and moved up to her family's farm near Columbus. Even though he
had spent many summers in the state, it was his first taste of a real
Wisconsin winter.
"Being from Texas, usually you get snow once every 10 years, and it's a
half-inch," he says. "I wanted to see snow. I'd watch the weather report,
and they said it would snow at midnight, so I'd set my alarm to get up and
see it. And that year, through the whole winter it was really dry. I was
like 'Why are you guys always complaining about the cold and the snow?' "
"But Ann got into veterinary school the next fall, and we moved up to
the Twin Cities," Plata says, and then laughs. "And it started to snow in
October and didn't quit until mid-April."
When Plata formed Extra Hot, it was hard to find musicians in Wisconsin
who had played Tex-Mex music. Drummer Clyde Stubblefield played on the
band's first album, and Plata's wife played bass guitar and sang backing
vocals.
The current lineup now includes D. "Ernie" Conner on guitars and Scott
Young on drums, as well as Ann Plata on bass.
Extra Hot now has three albums to its credit, and after a busy summer
of touring, Plata is preparing to go into the studio in December to record
the fourth.
Ann Plata will serve as producer on this record for the first time.
Plata says she has a sharp ear for picking out what a song does and
doesn't need.
"With me I could just pile on stuff and think this sounds really
great," Plata says. "She's like, 'Oh, that's a little too much. Let's pull
this out and this out.' And hey, that does sound a whole lot better, it's
not quite as cluttered."
Plata seems to have rededicated his energies this year toward his
music. He recently quit a job in middle management that was taking up a
lot of his time, instead taking a job whose regular hours are more
conducive to being a full-time musician.
He says the joy he gets from music isn't from being on stage with
hundreds of people looking at him, and it certainly isn't his dream to
become rich and famous. Rather, he's in it to write and perform his own
songs for people.
"I know some talented musicians who are virtuosos, and nobody's ever
going to hear of them," Plata says. "They don't do it for the recognition.
They do it because they love the music. So when I hear them say that, it
makes me feel a little bit better. This isn't like when we were younger
and thought we were going to be on the pop charts."
"That has slowly faded away, like the shine on a new car," Plata
chuckles. "It's gotten a little dull. Finally you just want it to start
and get you somewhere. You don't care how it looks."
From Rhythm, Thursday, October 18, 2001.
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