If you couldn’t make it to La Santa Cecilia’s record release party at the La Fonda over the weekend (especially those under 21) you have another chance. La Santa Cecilia will be doing an in-store performance at Amoeba Records Hollywood on Monday, March 26th at 7pm in celebration of their latest release, El Valor.

El Valor finds the band interpreting songs by such artists as Caifanes, U2, Lhasa De Sela, and Soft Cell. Each song is given the La Santa Cecilia treatment: part Cumbia, Mariachi, Bolero, Ranchera, and Latin Pop. Much like one of my favorite cover albums, Café Tacuba’s classic Avalancha De Exitos, El Valor is sincere without the trappings of being ironic. Each song is an attempt not only at reinterpretation, but a challenge to top the original.

La Santa Cecilia musicianship is sublime, without a doubt. Still, it would be hard not to single out their lead singer, La Marisol. She is often quoted as being the soul of the group. Her sound is unique in that one can hear generations of influences yet she manages not to sound derivative. When I hear her voice, I feel like a cook trying to guess the ingredients of a great dish only to come to the conclusion that the food is great.

On Tuesday, April 3rd, a new collection of reinvented Selena will be released to commemorate what would have been her 40th birthday. The songs that make the Enamorada De Ti album are some of her biggest hits redone with modern pop artists, including Samo from the group Camila, Don Omar, and Selena Gomez. According to the producer, Selena’s brother and main songwriter A.B. Quintanilla III, it was a way to imagine what Selena would be doing musically if she were alive.

Singer Lhasa de Sela passed away on January 1st 2010, after a twenty-one month battle with breast cancer. Lhasa, as she was known, released three albums. 1997's La Llorona, 2003's The Living Road and her self-titled release in April of 2009. She also performed at Amoeba Hollywood in 2004 just before I started working here, and at the San Francisco store later that same week.

She was born on September 27, 1972, to a Mexican father and an American mother. She spent much of her childhood traveling back and forth through Mexico and the U.S. This nomadic lifestyle contributed to her creativity and by the age of thirteen, she started singing in restaurants. In 1997, La Llorona brought her much praise in Canada, where she relocated after moving out on her own. La Llorona was sung entirely in Spanish. The Living Road, her second album, made her an international star, as she sang in Spanish, French and English, easily flowing from one language to the next. 2009's self-titled release, Lhasa, was her first entirely in English, which, after reading the lyrics, I can only assume chronicled her bout with cancer.  Due to her sickness, Lhasa was forced to cancel her tour slated for last fall. She also planned to record an album of the songs of  Victor Jara and Violeta Parra, but died before the album could come to fruition.