The song “Low Rider” reminds me of the opening scene of Cheech & Chong’s “Up in Smoke.” The level of love and pride for the vehicle, regardless of its condition, is the essence of the lowrider culture.
War, formed in 1969 in Long Beach, California, released Low Rider on June 16, 1975, as part of their 7th album “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”. It’s an epic combination for a band name, song title, and album title.
Low Rider is an anthem that captures the lowrider culture, especially in Southern California. Low riding involves driving your car at a slow pace to show off its customized features, such as the paint job, wheels, hydraulics, upholstery, and chrome accents. This deliberate speed allows the low rider to display their vehicle, as an extension of themselves. It’s more than a mode of transportation.
Lonnie Jordan, the band’s leader and keyboard player, said, “We were seven people – Charles Miller on saxophone and vocals, Papa Dee Allen on percussion, Harold Brown on drums, B.B. Dickerson on bass, Howard Scott on guitar, and Lee Oskar on harmonica.”
“It’s kind of like, between myself and the band and the engineer, we were like a nine-piece band. And we all were in it at the same time together, you know, feeling it,” said producer Jerry Goldstein. Chris Huston was the engineer.
The initial recording session for Low Rider happened in the west coast of California, in a studio called Crystal Studio on Vine Street.
“The Crystal studio was a huge place with big speakers, so we could have 20 friends in there hanging with us. Every night was a party,” said Goldstein. “Stevie Wonder was recording in the same studio so we’d each listen to what the other was doing.”
“We went into the studio. And uh, we didn’t have a song yet. We weren’t really writers. We didn’t know nothing. And Jerry knew that, “So he just took us in and said, okay, let’s see what we can get,” Jordan recalled. “We’d start recording, just jamming, and suddenly – around eight minutes in – we’d find a groove.”
Eight minutes into a 45-minute jam session is when War found its speed.
“Ideas just would come into my head, listening to the tracks, jamming. So, we did a 45-minute jam. It was just part of the creative process,” said Goldstein. “We’d go in and we’d start recording, you know, and most of the time we’re just jamming. It’s going along, and all of a sudden, eight minutes in, or something, there’s a nice groove.”
The music started to come together, including the beginning.
“It was crazy at times. This is the way we wrote. We have tracks and ideas. And then we would just make records out of ’em. And a lot of times they were written in the studio. Like, I had to create the beginning. There was no beginning, because it was part of a jam. So I created the beginning by putting the cowbell by itself,” recalled Goldstein. “I never re-recorded any of this stuff. I always made the original jam work. You know, it’s more organic that way. And that’s why it’s so raw. And that’s why it’s War.”
The band took a break from the jam session, then Charles Miller arrived at the studio.
The lyrical inspiration is from a ’52 Chevy
“So then we come back in and say, ‘Okay. Let’s put some real lyrics on.’ And it just so happened that Charles Miller, our saxophone player at the time, walked in the studio, and he had just parked his lowrider car outside. He’d just bought it,” said Jordan.
“Charles Miller, who originally sang the lead, our saxophone player, walked into the studio after he had just bought a ’52 Chevy, and he was proud of it. He had a little bit too much tequila, walked into the studio, and sat down on this bench in front of a microphone. We already had the track done, but we were just trying to figure out what to do with it. And he came in with this tequila, a bottle of mezcal with the worm at the bottom, and he had his salt and lemon, and his voice was messed up from drinking, so he started singing ‘low rider’. And there it was. He just came up with this Low Rider. And that was it, and we wrote the rest.”
“And we all went out to see it,” said Goldstein. “And I said, you got that lowrider out there. And why don’t we write a song about you, about lowriders? And he went out on the mic, and we wrote down everything that we wanted to write about lowriders, and the lowrider vibe, and the lowrider culture.”
The song was crafted over days. “I mean, I spent days editing this thing to get it right. ‘Cause I had to finish the album, and this was the last song I was doing on the album. And it’s six o’clock in the morning and I’m at Sound City, and I’ve got five edited versions that I had done that day. And I took the shortest version,” said Goldstein. “Because you never get enough in three minutes. And don’t overdo it. Just give ‘em enough. Just what it needs, and that’s it. I had a friend on some local radio station. And before we actually released it, I had this radio station play it. And the phones, the guy was saying he’s never had the phones light up like it did.”
“We gave cassettes to the lowriders and they all played it in their cars. As soon as it got played on the radio, the Latin community sent it up the charts, then off it rocketed and nothing was going to stop it,” said Jordan. “The lowrider community, and especially the Hispanic community, I mean, they made us.”
“The Imperials and the Dukes [were] rival car clubs, not gangs, but car clubs. They never really socialized with one another. So when we did that song, it brought the Imperials and the Dukes together as one. We gave them the first cassette before it came out on the radio. From that point and on, that song went all the way from the West Coast to Chicago and New York, and all the way to Japan and Germany — around the world! Actually, lowriders are around the world now,” said Jordan.
Lyrically: Low Rider
“We all developed the rest of the lyrics,” said Jordan. “I was in the studio playing the piano while they were trying to work out the lyrics. And then I came back in to hear what they had.”
The lyrics of Low Rider proudly describe the culture of cruising your streets in a customized car – by yourself, or with friends. It’s what you do and this love lifts you up and gets you moving.
All my friends know the low rider (yeah)
The low rider is a little higher (yeah)
The low rider drives a little slower
Low rider is a real goer
“We were trying to convey that the low rider gets a little higher by riding in his automobile, being proud of how he takes care of his ride. It’s like riding around in your trophy,” said War’s drummer Harold Brown.
“‘The low rider drives a little slower’ line was a reference to drivers saving gas, which was very expensive then because of the oil crisis,” said Jordan.
Hey
Low rider knows every street, yeah
Low rider is the one to meet, yeah
The drive has started. It’s as though you’re in the lowrider watching whatever unfolds unfold. The low rider you’re with knows every street, and is the one to meet. These lyrics show a deep connection to community. Every one is the one to meet. All customized with the same love for the culture.
Low rider don’t use no gas now
Low rider don’t drive too fast
The lyrics, “Low rider don’t use no gas now / The low rider don’t drive too fast,” reveals the pace of the culture, partly due to the cost of gas at the time, but also low riding is about enjoying a slower pace to show your low rider – which is the one to meet.
Take a little trip, take a little trip
Take a little trip and see
Take a little trip, take a little trip
Take a little trip with me
“‘Take a little trip with me’ was an innocent line about getting in the car with us, but after people started asking about it we realized it was a double entendre,” said Jordan.
“We did not want it to sound as if we were referring to drugs. As a rule most Lowriders are not big druggies, because we all had regular jobs as machinists, body and fender and mechanics,” said Brown. “We didn’t have any extra money for drugs. We put the money into our cars. Drugs didn’t come into the picture then.”
“It annoys some people that the sax solo fades out, but my thinking was that if I shortened the song to three minutes, people would want to hear it again,” said Goldstein. “Low Rider has a life of its own.”
Low Rider topped the Billboard R&B chart and cruised to number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975. The song has since appeared in numerous films, TV shows, and commercials, including Up in Smoke (1978), Dazed and Confused (1993), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), The Simpsons (2011), as the theme song for The George Lopez Show, and in the music for an ad for the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor.
In 2014, Low Rider was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
