ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 6, 1996 TAG: 9602060086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
Francisco M. ``Cannibal'' Garcia, leader of Cannibal and the Headhunters, the vocal quartet that epitomized Los Angeles' Eastside sound in the mid-1960s, has died. He was 49.
Garcia, who had recently worked as a research nurse at the University of Southern California, died Jan. 21 in Los Angeles following a long illness, his brother, Albert, said Monday.
Nationally, Garcia and his group were best known for their hit ``Land of 1,000 Dances,'' which reached No. 30 on Billboard's pop charts in 1965.
Combining the words of the Chris Kenner-Fats Domino composition with a rhythm borrowed from Stevie Wonder, Garcia concocted a unique arrangement of a song recorded by several groups. When he first performed the song, he forgot the words, ad-libbing ``Na-na-na-na-na.'' The improvisation stuck and became the catch-phrase of probably the best-known hit from the Latin-Motown East Los Angeles sound.
Garcia and his backup singers - a group of friends from the neighborhood - earned the chance to record their hit on the Rampart label when they attracted the attention of record producer Eddie Davis. ``I went to the Ramona Gardens project and there were the Jaramillo brothers, Bobby and Joe, Richard Lopez and Cannibal,'' Davis told the Los Angeles Times in 1984. ``I listened to them in a house in the project where they had a single microphone, an amplifier the size of a matchbook and about 14 brothers and sisters running around while they were trying to sing for me.''
He liked what he heard.
The group cobbled together its name from Garcia's ``placa,'' or street name, and that of what Serrano later described as ``a social group.'' None of the quartet was involved in gang activity, but they grew up in the middle of it.
With the success of their record, Cannibal and the Headhunters were hired as opening acts for several of the Motown groups they idolized, touring the country with the Temptations, the Miracles and the Supremes.
``We were so young a lot of the groups took us under their wings,'' Garcia once told the Times. ``The Temptations and the Miracles used to do routines in the back room. ... It was like our training, our school.''
The fame of Cannibal and the Headhunters rose when they were signed as the opening act for the Beatles' U.S. tour in 1965.
``It took us almost a whole number to get everybody on our side, but we were kids and cute, four little guys up there kicking their legs,'' Garcia said years later.
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