Amid a difficult dozen days in 2022, San Francisco singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet came face to face with the idea of his own death. Following the discovery of a mass in his intestine, he was poking around his online medical records when he caught the dreaded C-word. Worse yet, the disease had spread.
“I didn’t have a relationship with mortality,” says Prophet, who performs with his new band, His Cumbia Shoes, on Sat/28 at The Chapel. “It seemed so far in the distance. I didn’t even know what lymphoma was. Now, I’m like, ‘There’s cancer all over my body.’ I felt like I had a stake driven through my heart. I was terrified.”
He underwent a scan to gauge the severity and progression of his lymphoma diagnosis. Then came 12 grueling days till he met with his oncologist who told him that it was stage four but treatable.
Learning that he could beat it with a combination of immunotherapy and chemo, and that he wouldn’t lose his hair, provided some relief. It also helped to have his wife and bandmate, Stephanie Finch, by his side, synthesizing information, asking follow-up questions, and advocating on his behalf when he couldn’t. The alt-country artist also credits Finch with pushing him to get the colonoscopy that led doctors to locate the malignant mass in the first place.
Music proved another ally for Prophet as he went from diagnosis to prognosis to remission.
The singer and guitarist, boasting six studio LPs with rock group Green on Red and 16 indie solo albums, soundtracked six harrowing months of chemo with the cumbia he’d obsessed over since first encountering it at a Saturday night Latin party at the Make-Out Room a few years prior.
“The DJ dropped the needle on these cumbia records, and then you hear the bassline coming out of the subwoofers,” says Prophet. “I started seeing people dance, and the atmosphere of the room changed. I thought, ‘Wow, I wish this night would go on forever.’ It just enchanted me.”
In his time away from recording and touring, he threw himself into the Latin American genre, whether catching it live, on vintage vinyl, or in retro YouTube videos. It both absorbed and assured Prophet during his illness and recovery.
“That’s when I crammed that stuff so far into my brain that it started coming out of my fingers when I picked up a guitar,” he says.
Prophet’s new album, Wake The Dead, fuses rhythmic booty-shaking cumbia with rock ‘n’ roll, punk, surf, and soul. The LP was recorded in Oakland with his longtime backing band, The Mission Express, and Qiensave, a Cumbia Urbana band of brothers from Salinas that embodies everything he loves about the Latin sound.
Prophet has always been a student of the arts. Even before moving to San Francisco in 1983, he was taking in as much culture as he could from the vibrant, colorful, and energized city, starting with a trip to Mabuhay Gardens to see the Dead Kennedys at 16.
It’s where he learned music production at San Francisco State University and, over the ensuing years, gained insight from culturally significant films screening at prestigious movie houses including the Red Vic and Balboa Theatre, great writers, and fine artists.
All of these elements have shaped the creator that Prophet has become, but cumbia takes center stage on the life-affirming Wake The Dead.
The thrilling title track is inspired by the lively ways Latin culture celebrates the dead. Famously, on Día de los Muertos, the bereaved decorate the graves of loved ones with flowers, candles, and photos and cherished mementos of the deceased. Food, beverages, and cigarettes are left out to entice the spirits of the dead. Dancing skeletons are brought out for the sake of levity.
“They’re not living in a Bergman movie,” says Prophet. “It’s just different, culturally, and we can learn. There’s a lot they can teach us.”
The bubbly “Betty’s Song” blurs the line between reality and fancy as it tells the tale of a working-class child of immigrants trying to overcome her difficult lot in life. The wistful “Give The Boy A Kiss” explores loss and lasting love atop an infectious rockabilly riff. The sorrowful “First Came The Thunder” tracks a lonesome lover after a memory that remains out of reach.
Even at its darkest, Wake The Dead brings the light with compelling grooves, energizing basslines, and sing-along melodies.
The apocalyptic “Sally Was A Cop” places an unexpectedly gratifying hook inside a macabre exploration of cartel violence. The jeering “In The Shadows (For Elon)” uses frisky Farfisa to great effect as it addresses frustrations with a corrupt, money- and power-hungry society. The slowed-down, doo-wop-inflected “One Lie For Me, One For You” proves that even a breakup song can sound romantic.
The countrified closer, “It’s a Good Day to Be Alive,” is as celebratory as the title suggests, with the narrator finding excitement in life’s little pleasures, like watching a rerun or teasing a baby.
Simple comforts are something Prophet—who’s currently in full remission and in the middle of a major tour—appreciates more than ever these days.
“What I went through has given me a little bit in terms of spirituality—a little more gratitude,” he says. That’s a lot. It sounds cliche but we have limited time on this planet, so every day is a gift.”
CHUCK PROPHET & HIS CUMBIA SHOES Sat/28, The Chapel, SF. Tickets and more info here.
