Rafael Castrejon (Talent) is a mariachi musician and the maestro of Mariachi Centella. The band, which Castrejon founded in 2011, plays for a variety of events (celebrations, holidays, quinceañeras, birthdays, funerals, weddings) all over northern California, southern and western Oregon, and up to Seattle, WA. He himself sings as well as plays 3 instruments and has also written/recorded his own songs on CDs with Mariachi Centella.
Bio
Rafael Castrejon (Talent) is a mariachi musician and the maestro of Mariachi Centella. The band plays for a variety of events (celebrations, holidays, quinceañeras, birthdays, funerals, weddings) all over northern California, southern and western Oregon, and up to Seattle, WA. Castrejon founded the group in 2011; as is typical of such a large band, some members come and go, but the core remains stable. Instruments include guitarras (guitars), violins, guitarróns (bass guitars), arpa (harp), accordion, tololoche (a Mexican upright double bass, smaller than a European bass), bajo sexto (acoustic bass), vihuelas (small guitars with a powerful sound), keyboard, and trumpetas (trumpets). He himself sings as well as plays violin, vihuela, and guitarrón; he has also written/recorded his own songs on CDs with Mariachi Centella. His favorites are romanticas and rancheras—love songs and ballads about ranch life.
Castrejon was born in the small pueblo of Etucuaro in Michoacán, Mexico. This tiny ranch town, he recalls, had only a few houses and some cattle. As a child, he was interested in music but had no access to instruments, so he made his own from whatever he could find. He salvaged scrap wood and stripped the wires from inside tires to repurpose for strings to fashion something resembling an instrument. When he was 15, Castrejon remembers hearing mariachi music on the radio for the first time, and he fell in love with it. The sound of all the instruments playing together just grabbed him. The musicians and bands he most admires and considers his musical mentors are Mariachi Vargas, singer Vicente Fernández, José Alfredo Jiménez, and Javier Solís.
In 1975 at the age of 19, Castrejon migrated to Corcoran, California for work; at last, he had enough money to purchase his own real instruments, a guitar and a violin. Next he bought a record player to have access to more music and he was able to imitate what he heard. Though he never took formal music lessons, he had the innate ability to learn to play by ear. As he put it, “I can play in the dark with my eyes closed.”
Around 1980, Castrejon moved back to his hometown in Mexico and put together a four-person group, which played traditional ranchera music with a folk violin, guitarra, tololoche, and vihuela. The group lasted about two years, and then Castrejon met the woman who would become his wife. They married, had children, and he worked at regular jobs and played some with other bands. He recorded two records, one with another ranchera music group in the early 1990s and the other with norteño group. During this period, the family moved back and forth between his hometown in Mexico and California. After visiting his brother in Talent, OR in 1991, Castrejon brought his entire family there in 1995; the mountains, pine forests reminded him of his pueblo. Finally, in 2011, he decided to form a mariachi band. While he liked norteño music, Castrejon explained, it did not touch him in the same way as mariachi. Some of his other band members joined with him to form the core of what became Mariachi Centella.
Music has always been at the heart of Castrejon’s life, and even during the years he didn't play with a group, he continued to practice on his own. Since the 2010s, however, he has practiced every day, often after a 10-hour workday. While violin was his primary instrument, he also learned to play vihuela and guitarrón. Several of his band members can also play several instruments, which helps with the group’s availability for performances. Mariachi Centella plays most weekends for quinceañeras (15th birthday celebrations for girls), compleaños (birthdays), weddings, and funerals. Castrejon finds it an honor and “really beautiful to have a mariachi or ranchero [band] at funerals.” Mariachi Centella also does early morning serenades on Mother’s Day or mañanitas for special women and plays for family gatherings as well as for schools and festivals. They especially enjoy educating people about the group’s music.
For Rafael Castrejon, music is much more than a passion; it’s his life. He plays because he can’t not play. As he says, “everywhere that you go, you always have music with you in your heart.”