Friday: 9:30 p.m. Railroad; Saturday: 3 p.m. Railroad, 6:15 p.m. Heritage; Sunday: mariachi traditions 1 p.m. at Two Rivers with Nati Cano and members of Los Camperos

Since leader Natividad Cano founded Los Camperos 42 years ago, the group has become one of the most influential and accomplished mariachi ensembles in the world. It has been instrumental in the proliferation of mariachi throughout California and the nation and irreplaceable in bringing deserved respect to this vibrant tradition.

Mariachi’s beginnings are rooted in stringed instrument traditions brought from Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. The ensemble uses the unique and versatile instrumentation of guitarron (bass guitar), vihuela (small rhythm guitar), violins and trumpets to perform a wide variety of music, from traditional sones (dance pieces) to the latest Latin pop tunes.

The genre took its current form in the 19th and 20th centuries through the musical creations of farmers, ranchers and jornaleros, or day laborers, in and around Mexico’s western state of Jalisco and its capital, Guadalajara. It gained national prominence in Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s when it was featured by the movie industry and is now viewed by many as Mexico’s national music.

Natividad Cano was born in 1933 into a family of jornaleros who lived near Guadalajara in the village of Ahuisculco. His grandfather Catarino Cano was a self-taught guitarron player, and his father, Sotero Cano, was a versatile musician playing all of the mariachi stringed instruments.

In 1939, Cano’s father began teaching the 6-year-old to play the vihuela; two years later, “Nati” was enrolled at the Academia de Musica in Guadalajara to study the violin. After six years, he left the academy and joined his father, supporting the family by playing in cantinas and cafes. “Because we were all jornaleros, music was a necessity,” Cano says. “It was a means to gain more money than simply working the soil.”

Frustrated by the lack of respect given to mariachi music and musicians that he experienced firsthand early on in his career, Cano committed himself to gaining for his art form the respect he believed it deserved.

In 1950, he persuaded his father to let him travel to the border town of Mexicali to join the Mariachi Chapala. “I have to follow my dreams,” he told him. The youngest musician in the group by at least 10 years, Cano soon became the mariachi’s musical arranger. He emigrated in 1960 to Los Angeles and joined Mariachi Aguila, the house mariachi at the Million Dollar Theatre, a major stopping point on the Mexican professional music circuit. Upon the death of the group’s director, Cano became the new leader and renamed the group Los Camperos (The Countrymen).

After several years touring the United States, Cano and six members of Los Camperos opened La Fonda restaurant in Los Angeles in 1967. The restaurant’s dinner-theater concept welcomed mariachi fans and created a new model for mariachi performance venues. La Fonda became an important center of Mexican culture in Los Angeles.

Cano’s work with Linda Ronstadt brought Los Camperos recognition in the wider world of popular music, leading to an international touring schedule.

Cano has become a major figure as teacher, performer, competition judge and benefactor in mariachi festivals throughout the Southwest. In 1990, he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts for his contributions to mariachi. Through his steadfast devotion to mariachi music, Natividad Cano has helped to ensure the continued vitality and integrity of this important Mexican-American music.