Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes

Sportsmens presents

Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes

Sunday, July 20, 2025 4pm

$30.00 + Fees 2pm Doors

When a stage four lymphoma diagnosis forced him off the road and into the hospital, Chuck
Prophet didn’t know if he’d live long enough to see the end of the year, let alone get back on
tour.
“I was going through a tunnel,” he recalls. “It was dark. But I had music: music to play, music
to listen to, music to get me out of my head. Music was my savior.”
That much is plain to hear on Wake The Dead, Prophet’s extraordinary new album. Recorded
with band of brothers ¿Qiensave?, the collection explores the world of Cumbia music, which
consumed and comforted Prophet during his illness and subsequent recovery. The songs are
intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body, with arrangements that blur
the lines between tradition and innovation. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and
soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a
genre that traces its roots back to the jungles of South America.
Captured live in the studio, Wake The Dead resumes Prophet’s streak of more than a dozen
critically acclaimed solo albums stretching all the way back to 1990, when the California
native first shifted focus from pioneering neo-psych band Green on Red to working under his
own name. Since then, Prophet—who’s now in full remission—has earned raves everywhere
from Rolling Stone to NPR, landed songs in a slew of films and television shows, and seen his
work covered by Bruce Springsteen, Solomon Burke, and Heart, among others.