What: Ritmo De Hoyos playing the Wichita Falls Parks and Rec Concert Series
When: 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 22
Where: The park next to Downtown Wichita Falls Farmers Market on 8th Street.
Admission: Free
Information: (940) 761-7496
The Ritmo De Hoyos group, or De Hoyos Rhythm, formed in February 2017 to perform a percussion rich selection of Cumbia and Tejano music.
The nine-member band comes directly from the four eldest musician sons of Pablo De Hoyos. They played Tejano music in area bands such as MARS all over the southwest region since the 1970s.
Ritmo De Hoyos gathers together brothers Manuel and Robert De Hoyos along with their family members, and the popular group plays at family get together as well as Our Lady of Guadalupe events such as Fiestas Patrias and Cinco de Mayo
The group will play from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday May 22 at the Downtown Wichita Falls Farmers Market as part of the Wichita Falls Parks and Rec Concert Series.
“We are heavy on the Latin percussion,” said Robert, “with five members playing percussive instruments including drums. When people hear percussion, it makes them want to dance,” he said with a laugh.
“We play cumbias, which is our main type of music, but we still play Tejano, like my brothers and I used to play all over Texas and Oklahoma,” he said. The mix is probably 70 percent cumbia to 30 percent Tejano.
But the cumbia styles the group performs are not like what people are used to locally, he said, “but more from Mexico and Columbia. We play with a lot more percussion. I have not heard of a percussion-oriented cumbia band locally since the 1970s.”
The group covers cumbias by groups such as Los Angeles Azules,
La Sonora Dinamita, Fito Olivares, Grupo Canaveral and Marco Antonio Solis.
Because of popular demand, the family band also performs Tejano music by Selena (three songs), Ramon Ayala, La Mafia and Elsa Garcia.
Ritmo De Hoyos also covers tunes by Bronco, a group that was scheduled to play Memorial Auditorium last night.
The group includes Robert’s brother Manuel who sings lead and plays guitar, as well as Manuel and Robert’s youngest sister, Linda Poore also sings lead vocals.
Robert’s wife Lynn plays guiro, a percussion instrument. The couple’s daughter, Brittany, plays keyboards and sings lead vocals, and their son, Eric, plays drums and sings and is occasionally on trumpet.
Brittany’s long-time friend, Daniel Sanchez, plays congas. Manuel’s 8-year-old grandson, Isaac Contreras, plays temple blocks (percussion), and Manuel’s son-in-law, Luis Hernandez, plays timbales.
The group formed shortly after Robert and Manuel’s brother Alfredo passed away. They came together to play at family functions. “But then a friend heard us, and we got a gig at Jefe’s Mexican restaurant. The church then asked us to play and it just went from there,” he said.
Robert said the band live is “really energetic and lively. On stage, we dance the whole night.”
It’s also fun, he said, to be able to play music together as a family. “It keeps my wife, myself and our children close. We look forward to every weekend and get together with my brother and sister. It’s really, really something we enjoy.”