Los Camperos de Nati Cano burst into song amid wind gusts billowing across the sea of people surrounding the Railroad Stage on Saturday.

Nattily clad in brown-embroidered suede suits and matching boots, the Los Angeles-based Mexican mariachis serenaded the crowd, delivering a rapid-fire “Los Pollitos” (Little Chicks), nostalgic “Jalisco,” mournful “Julia” and other traditional tunes. Fittingly, they even reproduced the sounds of a steam engine – an actual freight train had slowly snaked behind the stage shortly before the performance – in one song.

A courtly, silver-haired man, Natividad “Nati” Cano founded Los Camperos 42 years ago. He apologized to the crowd for the fact his mariachis performed “hatless,” but he didn’t want the broad-brimmed sombreros swept off in the wind.

A native of Mexico’s Jalisco state, he has been instrumental in establishing mariachi as an art form nationally and around the world. The musicians play guitarron (bass guitar), vihuela (small rhythm guitar), violins and trumpets.

When asked which of those instruments he played, Cano grinned mischievously and replied “all of them.”

– Letitia Baldwin